


i'm gonna come clean

by jehoney



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Apologies, Barebacking, Blow Jobs, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Break Up, Breakfast, Cheating, Developing Relationship, Drunk Sex, Drunkenness, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Filth, Flashbacks, Flirting, Getting Together, I Love You, Infidelity, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Pancakes, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Kissing, Possessive Behavior, Pre-Queen, Rough Sex, Shameless Smut, Sharing a Bed, Slurs, Slut Shaming, Smile Era, Smoking, Smut, University, Violent Thoughts, anticlimactic but still, bc no-one knew about gay sexual health until the 80s sorry but that's the contextual tea, but because of homophobic legislation, freddie and roger are queerplatonic husbands, how many times can u say they have sex, i'm back with more rpf do i still h8 myself for it!! yes, letters as significant dramatic devices, many swears and maybe sexx if i write more, not in a sexy way!!, roger is unlikeable, roger is with tim, roger just cries all ch 3 he deserves it, roger may or may not be seeing brian, roger u dumb thot, so technically underage sex, sorry - Freeform, thank you Shakespeare, the freddie/rog is so brief they hooked up one time and it's alluded to sorry bros, they fuck to jimi hendrix, tim is a good guy, tim may or may not know, woop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-10-03 21:23:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17291696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehoney/pseuds/jehoney
Summary: They both look back at him before every show: Tim throwing him a wink that he counters with a blown kiss, light and breezy. Brian looks at him, deep and resolute like still waters, and Roger gives nothing but his gaze back, letting it weigh on him.Roger needs to sort himself out, he knows. He needs to tell him, when there’s a right time, when they’re not arguing or shagging or at lectures or busy, he needs to tell Tim. He owes it to him. He needs to sort himself out.Just maybe not right now.in which roger may or may not be shagging both of his bandmates.





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> hello welcome to roger being a dumb Thot hour we love both him and brian, canon established proponents of infidelity that i have exploited for my odd fic.
> 
> enjoy - if u want more drop me a comment and i'll probs write it instead of my 3000 word essay xoxoxo

It starts with the looks.

Roger thinks he’s imagining it at first: the eyes, sidelong and lingering. They hold his, gaze curious and calm but somehow searching him, looking inside. It makes him feel odd, not quite uncomfortable, but still exposed in a way.

He doesn’t know when Brian started looking at him like that.

He does know when he started noticing it, though. They’re in rehearsal, veering into hour four on the edge of a collective caffeine crash and he comes in a beat early with a cymbal roll, brain working on half speed. Tim gives him a glare over his shoulder, he’s still pissed at him for showing up half an hour late to their dinner the night before, and Brian turns to look too, but it takes him a good minute before he takes his eyes away. Roger can feel the way he watches him, and he gives him a questioning (if also slightly defensive) set of raised eyebrows in response which seem to jerk Brian back to consciousness. He turns away.

Roger can’t really _not_ notice it, after that.

It would be a lie if he said he didn’t like being watched, especially in the way Brian does it. Tim watches him in a hungrier way, low eyes and like he’s looking straight through his clothes, which Rog fucking lives for, but it’s always with an expectation that can get a little tiring. Brian doesn’t want anything from him, which makes it somehow better. Better to play up to, as well, more fun, finding the things that catch his eye, make him stop and phase out of himself for a second.

When he bites his lip, that’s an obvious one. It’s one that makes Tim’s hand tighten high up on his thigh, or throw him a wink from behind the microphone. Now, it’s one that makes Brian look, drawing him in.

It’s not flirting, the looks. It’s not cheating. At first.

It’s a cold January night when it becomes something far different.

Roger thinks it’s either a fantastic or pretty heinous way to start the decade.

The night outside is cold, but the inside of the pub is deliciously sweaty, windows steamed and lights low and golden. He’s three pints down, and pressed into Tim’s side, alcohol loosening his muscles and making him stupidly and uncontrollably giggly. Freddie’s tagged along, draped in the corner of the booth and giving his two pence on their set list for the night, arguing lyrics with Brian who, luckily, knows him well enough by now to hold against his occasionally outspoken opinions. Brian’s legs are stretched out underneath the table, knocking shins with Roger, and the closeness on all sides makes the pit of his stomach warm, but he can feel Tim is stiff beside him and his fingers are drumming on the table like he’s got somewhere else to be.

“You okay?” he asks, and Tim hums into the top of his hair in response. He pulls away to look at him.

“You look pissed.”

He does. His teeth are worrying at the inside of his cheek and as Roger ducks out from underneath his arm he stretches it a few times like the position was painful. He could’ve just said something, Roger thinks. Then, he replies, but it’s not to Roger, it’s to Freddie.

“I don’t think it is the lyrics, Freddie. I think the drums were out for the whole of the last half tonight.”

Well, what a fucking wanker. Roger tries not to fly off the handle, he does, but it’s doubly stinging when your bandmate is also your boyfriend, and triply when he’s talking about you like you’re not sat right beside him. So he holds his nerve, though his face is warm with anger, and shuffles away from him so he can turn and face him properly.

“Care to elaborate?” he asks, as measured as he can, because as far as he’s concerned they played well tonight and not even Freddie, who’s happily the first to critique anything from his drumming to his outfits, had anything to say about it.

Tim sighs like Roger’s being irrational, which makes him much more liable to be just that.

“It’s nothing personal, Rog.” He says, passing a hand over his brow, “I don’t know whether we’ve started slowing down, but you just seemed in a rush.”

Roger’s not about to say that he’s right, but he does very often feel like the songs are crawling when they’ve played them too many times, so it’s more than likely that he was trying to inject some life into the three of them. Tim looks wary, though, like he knows Rog is wounded and therefore volatile, and Brian reaches a palm out flat on the table like he’s going to start playing peacemaker. Roger doesn’t let him get the chance.

“Right.” is what he answers back, stripping it of as much annoyance as he can, because Tim is just looking a bit deflated now and neither of them are in the right place for an argument.

“I’m not trying to piss you off.”

Roger smiles, because he’s managed to succeed even without trying.

“Course not.” he replies, though, and Brian’s hand retreats back across the table, “We’re all tired.”

There’s a palpable and surprised relief from all three of them that makes Roger oddly proud at being so unpredictably mature, and Tim even meets his eyes with a look that’s almost grateful.

“Yeah.” he says, and is rubbing a hand over his eyes again, “Sorry. I think I might head home.”

It’s not even half ten, but he doesn’t give Roger a chance to try and convince him to stay before he’s draping his coat over his arm and standing to shuffle past him out of the booth. Before he leaves he turns back, and Roger knows how he looks, standing shocked and a little forlorn at his sudden departure. He tries to play it off casually.

“Alright. See you tomorrow?”

Tim nods, and presses a quick kiss to the side of his mouth which he chases after until he gets a proper kiss goodbye. The rest of the patrons are too sloshed to notice, but Tim still glances round warily after he pulls back, little searching looks he thinks Roger doesn’t notice.

“I’ll call you.” he says, and raises a hand to Brian, “Have a good night. Good to see you, Freddie.”

“Pleasure as always!”

And he’s gone through the cigarette smog and the bodies. Roger has no idea what’s got him so cagey tonight, so stiff and irritable, especially when he’s got three pints in him and wants nothing more than deep kisses and maybe a nice slow shag (except his shag has just walked out of the door). He tries to think if he’s had any exams, any familial death anniversaries that Roger has forgotten to be sensitive about, or any glaring emotional events in general, but comes up empty. Suddenly he realises he’s been standing watching the spot where he disappeared for a good minute, and he can feel Brian’s gaze on him, curious and warm.

Then Brian’s pushing up with his long arms and shuffling out of the booth, and Roger snaps (with a little more accusation than he originally intended):

“And where are you going?”

He stops, caught.

“For a piss?” he asks warily, and Roger realises how fucking stupid he’s being. He also realises that he needs one too.

“I’ll come.”

They make their way through a side door that, in their defence, looks very much like one that should lead to toilets, maybe a corridor, and at most a back room. This is resolutely not their local – the venue was out in Wimbledon so they’re sampling the local joints, which seem to have ridiculously complicated routes to finding their toilets, and after they’ve gone down two flights of stairs and through a suspiciously badly lit corridor, they begin to think this is not the way to the men’s room. Roger doesn’t even think they’re underneath the pub anymore.

“Is this going to the fucking Tube or something? Where are the loos?”

Brian sounds so genuinely distressed and as he whips his head from side to side his hair bounces in a way that Roger can’t help but laugh at, leaning his back up against the wall, shoulders shaking with sniggering.

“You’re going to piss yourself in the subterranean tunnels of south-west London, your body never to be found.” he declares, spreading his arms wide for dramatic effect and Brian’s head falls forward as he joins in the laughter.

There’s something about the way his slim shoulders shake and his hair moves atop them, like it should make him fall over with its weight, that makes Roger laugh harder, tipsy and slightly hysterical. Brian jabs a finger in his chest, in an attempt to shut him up.

“Fuck off.” he manages, grinning and out of breath, and then Roger does something irreparable and heinous and so fucking ridiculously fantastic as he leans in to kiss him.

But he barely manages to brush their lips together before Brian’s got both hands on his upper arms, holding him back gently but firmly.

“Woah, woah, woah…” he says softly, but the breathlessness in his voice has changed to something much more cornered and apprehensive.

Roger appreciates what he’s doing, he really does. For the sake of his relationship, for the future of the band, for the basic respect he should owe Tim as a human being, this is one-hundred percent the absolute wrong thing to do, and Brian’s hands on his arms should make him stop and think, rather than make him hot like they are, and he is stopped, he figures, even with his face still dangerously close to Brian’s, and he is thinking, it’s just that he’s thinking he still really wants to kiss him despite every single reason otherwise.

But he doesn’t want to push his luck, so instead of just trying again which would probably make Brian bolt, he looks up at him through his lashes in a definitely _not_ tactical move and tells him, simply:

“I’ve seen you looking.”

Brian’s face darkens a good few shades of pink, and Roger knows he’s won.

“We can’t.” he protests, weakly, even as Roger presses closer, close enough to nearly be able to taste him, but his hands betray him as one snakes up to cup his jaw with a gentle firmness that makes Roger’s knees _weak_.

Thank God for Brian May’s equally shot moral compass.

So that’s when it changes, in warm hands and open, searching mouths in the underbelly of a crowded pub.

Freddie knows straight away, as soon as they walk back in all-too-composed and keeping a wary distance from each other, but he has the good taste not to mention it until Brian’s jumped off at his stop and he and Roger are alone. It’s half a lecture, half-admiration, mostly a voyeuristic interest in the details, but it mostly goes in one ear and out the other as Roger sees Brian’s eyes in the reflection of the train windows.

The looks mean more now and Roger doesn’t know whether he likes that or not. He likes when things are light, when they aren’t weighed down with expectation and meaning and questions, like the first time they fuck, quick but not rushed, hot and wet and just the right side of painful and more fun than Roger’s had with Tim for a good few months because they don’t know enough about each other’s bodies enough for things to get boring yet.

But he also loves the way he feels when Brian kisses him, and his kisses are the heaviest Roger’s felt. It’s some kind of rush at first, a rush that he thinks he might remember having with Tim at the beginning, the rush of kissing boys just out of sight of a group of lads who will beat the shit out of you for it, the schoolboy furtiveness of scandalous sex made a hundred times hotter with the bellows of infidelity. Now, though, it’s heavier, and Roger doesn’t know when that became manageable for him but somehow, somewhere along the way, it has. Brian kisses like he’s trying to drink him in and always, without fail, pulls back with some trace of a smile. Tim kisses him like clockwork. Brian’s hands luxuriate in the planes of his body. Tim’s hands rush and grope.

They both look back at him before every show: Tim throwing him a wink that he counters with a blown kiss, light and breezy. Brian looks at him, deep and resolute like still waters, and Roger gives nothing but his gaze back, letting it weigh on him.

Roger needs to sort himself out, he knows. He needs to tell him, when there’s a right time, when they’re not arguing or shagging or at lectures or busy, he needs to tell Tim. He owes it to him. He needs to sort himself out.

Just maybe not right now.


	2. thursday 5th february, 1970

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> filth!! utter filth! and some angst ---- thank u so much for your comments or i never would've written this much so i hope you enjoyyy
> 
> also rog is rather reprehensible and unlikable it just happened so sorry bout it, but he'll get his comeuppance...... ;)
> 
> xxxx

It’s half past five on a rainy Thursday afternoon, February sky hungover with cloud and pelting Roger as he fumbles with his front door key. The lock is dodgy, always has been, but today it seems to be deliberately obtuse, and Roger is frustrated and soaked. He only left the house because he remembered his labs today were ones that he’d actually prepared for and he needed to scrape all of the credit he could, but now he’s beginning to think it’s been resolutely not worth it.

After five minutes solid of jiggling he manages to get the door open, slamming it shut behind him and making his way up the stairs.

The flat is a crummy little bedsit above a lamp-shop that Freddie has stuffed full of curios and oddities under the illusion that they’ll make it feel more homely. It works to an extent, except for the fact that they just don’t have the room in their hall for a vintage coat rack; they barely have enough room for their vintage coats, and not everything necessarily _goes_ , giving the overall impression of a fortune-teller’s caravan, with the only thing missing being a crystal ball.

As Roger toes off his shoes he tosses the offending keys into just one such ornate china bowl on the side table, the resounding clink echoing through the apartment.

“I hope you haven’t chipped my trinket bowl!” comes a disembodied voice from Freddie’s room, and Roger smiles.

“Just think about all the words that came out of your mouth, and ask yourself whether any self-respecting adult should really own a trinket bowl.”

A figure appears to match the voice, half done up in black kohl, flares hugging his legs and some kind of blouse on his top half. He fixes Roger with a look.

“Every self-respecting adult should own a trinket bowl, darling.” He says simply, and Roger’s mood lifts a touch, but he’s still soaked and freezing. Rolling his eyes he heads for the boiler cupboard as Freddie follows, continuing his makeup in the hall mirror.

“I’m putting the heating on.”

“We can’t afford it!” comes the protest, but Roger honestly couldn’t care less. They’re perfect flatmates in many ways, but terrible ones in others, as neither of them have the closest idea about how to budget, pay tax, or clean, for that matter.

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a fuck.” He says simply, and turns the thermostat up as Freddie groans, “I don’t want it to be Arctic when Brian gets here.”

Freddie’s head whips round, and he doesn’t even try to play casual with his questioning.

“I thought you and Tim were having dinner tonight?” he asks, and Roger knows they’re in each other’s pockets but Freddie is pretty fucking intuitive to know that considering Roger deliberately didn’t mention it to him for a reason.

“How do you know that?” he asks, more aggressively than he’s proud of, and Freddie moves to the answering machine on the side.

“He left a message.”

He presses play with a painted fingertip, and Tim’s crackly voice fills Roger with a warm fondness that’s almost entirely overwhelmed by crippling guilt.

_“Hey, Rog… Made a reservation for seven, don’t know whether you wanted to go for drinks after so I made it early… I know you’ve got labs but I can swing by yours and we can get the Tube together, or I’ll just meet you there… Oh, and I’ve still got your shirt at mine from Monday... Okay, let me know, love you, see you later.”_

By the end of the message, Roger’s slid down the wall, face buried in his hands, and Freddie’s stood watching him. He reads Roger’s mind.

“You’re not standing him up?” he asks, somewhere between incredulous and disappointed, and Roger wishes he could say no. He was going to go, they’ve had it planned for a week, but he accidentally deliberately ran into Brian in the Physics Building caf yesterday afternoon and realised just how badly he needed to see him after a week without band rehearsals, and invited him round before even remembering he had dinner plans. He’s selfish and stupid and a terrible person, but something about Brian’s smiling eyes over his coffee made his logic fly out of the window.

“I do need to get that shirt back…” he muses, in an attempt to make Freddie think that he’s not completely decided on the matter (even though he is), and Freddie just rolls his eyes.

“My shirt, you mean.” he corrects him, and Roger just grunts in response as he pushes up from his foetal position and moves into his room, collapsing onto his bed. Freddie follows, eyes boring through him, and sets himself down in Roger’s desk chair, spinning himself around amusedly.

 “If you’re not going to go, just call him. Make an excuse.”

It’s an extraordinarily reasonable idea, and one that Roger has suggested to himself several times only to come up short for any plausible ideas.

“Like what?”

“Anything’s better than just _not showing up_.” Freddie responds, and gives his damp, prone form a pitying look. “God, you’re a mess. Tell him you need to write up the data from your labs, or whatever it is biologists do.”

Face buried in the pillow, he replies - to get Freddie to fuck off more than anything.

“Fine, fine. I’ll call him.”

Roger does not call him.

He changes into dry clothes: a too-small t-shirt that skirts above the waistband of his jeans leaving a tantalising gap of bare skin that he knows Brian won’t be able to keep his hands off, jeans tight and faded blue and unlikely to last more than half an hour on his body. He rakes a brush through his hair which has been growing out fast, coming just about down to his shoulders now.

He does look at the phone, in his defence. He plans an excuse, something about being sick and run down from work and rain, but he knows Tim will just cancel the reservation and run straight over to look after him which is equal parts sweet and terrifying. So he leaves it. He tries not to think about Tim sat alone at the restaurant table, having to lie to the waiters so he doesn’t look like he’s been abandoned. He’ll make it up to him tomorrow – a bunch of flowers and some croissants and a breakfast blowjob.

These thoughts get pushed away for more pressing practicalities as he leans against the doorframe of Freddie’s room and watches him picking out his rings.

“Do we have the stuff for a stir fry?”

Freddie looks at him like he’s just grown an extra head.

“No.”

It’s not like they don’t cook, because they do, and fucking well actually. It’s more that they find increasingly complicated recipes and buy all of the necessaries for them, and then use them all up on one bombastic and delicious meal, leaving them with leftovers for days but none of the actual ingredients to make anything else with.

Freddie’s moved onto bracelets now.

“Fuck. Roger hisses, “I need to cook something for Bri.”

“Do you know where has lovely delicious food?” Freddie asks, and Roger almost takes the bait before he realises what he’s getting at, “The restaurant you’re supposed to be at with your boyfriend.”

As he finishes he shakes the bangles down to his wrist, and Roger bangs his head against the doorframe in exasperation.

“Freddie…”

The authority with which Freddie turns to face him takes him by surprise.

“You know I’m not one to criticise promiscuity.” he begins, and Roger knows he’s in for a ribbing when that hard edge creeps into Freddie’s voice which is usually so allowing, “In fact, you’re really damaging my reputation by making me do so, dear, but this is getting fucking ridiculous. It’s been a full month, and you’ve shown no sign of breaking it off with either of them. It’s Valentine’s next week, for fuck’s sake.”

“I know.” He says, having completely forgotten.

Freddie looks at him unrelentingly.

“And who are you spending it with?”

Roger’s taken aback by the question, mostly because he hadn’t thought about it at all, but also because the answer should be obvious. He stammers for a split second, then replies maybe too defensively.

“Tim. Obviously.”

Freddie arches an eyebrow.

“Is it?”

“What?”

“Obvious?” He shrugs on his jacket, and gives a little twirl, letting Roger approve his outfit with a nod before kissing him on the cheek. “I’m off out. Have a lovely evening.”

He breezes out of the door leaving a waft of patchouli in his wake.

 

Valentine’s Day might as well be Roger Taylor’s fucking death sentence, as far as he’s concerned, because it means he absolutely cannot come clean to Tim until at least a full week after even if he wanted to, but he has to partake in some grand romantic gesture whilst knowing he’s going to break his fucking heart.

He goes into the bottom drawer of his bedside table and takes a large swig from the bottle of vodka he’s stashed there, before focusing his distressed attention on a more present problem – making his room look presentable. He’s always been good at compartmentalising, boxing away emotions and actions to make them either more bearable or justifiable, and tonight it works fucking brilliantly, as he can push Tim to the back of his mind and focus on throwing his underwear in the laundry basket.

He’ll make it up to him tomorrow. He’ll make it up to him tomorrow. He’ll come clean. He will.

Knowing Brian likes Hendrix, he digs out his records and puts them closest to the player, and even nicks one of Freddie’s incense sticks, wafting it around the room before there’s a knock on the door and he panics about how to put it out, so just shoves it in a glass of water.

It’s Brian.

(He’d be a bit surprised if it wasn’t.)

Brian, face red from the cold, slight stubble that piques Roger’s interest and a warm, soft smile as Roger holds open the door for him to come into the warm, leading the way up the stairs as he follows.

“This is nice.” Brian notes once they’re in the hallway, tugging at the hem of the shirt, and Roger turns into the touch so it becomes Brian’s hands resting on his hips.

“It’s old.” He counters, smug in the knowledge that it is having exactly the desired effect, and then Brian’s kissing him and he’s dizzy because he’s wanted this all day. They stay there for a good minute because they can, Brian’s arms around Roger’s waist and Roger’s wound around his neck, kissing like they might not get the chance again even though they’ve got the whole evening laid out ahead of them.

When they pull apart, Brian presses their foreheads together.

“Hello.” he says, eyes still fixed on Roger’s slick lips and Roger can’t help but smirk.

“Hi.”

“Missed you.”

“Mm.”

Roger is aware that this is the honeymoon period. This is the disgusting sappy passion that made him miss Tim in the same way after being apart from him for more than a few hours, so it’s not like Brian is phenomenal or unique. But Tim might not have ever kissed him like _that_.

He rolls his index finger in one of Brian’s ringlets.

“I don’t have much to eat.” he says apologetically, but Brian reaches for the plastic bag he’s dropped beside them.

“I brought stir-fry.”

Roger kisses him. Hard.

They eat and they kiss and they listen to _Electric Ladyland_ at blinding volume, splayed out on Roger’s bedroom floor, and it feels like one of the nights when he and Tim would get stoned out of their minds and shag each other stupid listening to _The White Album_ , except he doesn’t need weed to feel like Brian’s making him float.

These are the best nights, especially with Brian, because they’re slow and lazy and they don’t need to hide from anyone, plus lying on the floor makes anyone feel a little drunk and hysterical.

By this point Brian’s sat backed up against the bed, fingers miming the solo in ‘Long Hot Summer Night’ and Roger’s just lay on his back on the carpet, watching the way his hands move through the air. He stretches out an arm and tugs on his jeans, and Brian’s eyes crack open to meet his, taking in the length of his body.

Roger teases the hem of his shirt, an invitation for Brian to climb on top of him and take it off that Tim would take in an instant, but he stays where he is just watching, gaze growing heavier by the second. He props himself up on his elbow, turning to lie on his side and face him, dragging a hand over the width of his thigh, but Brian still doesn’t move. He just cocks an eyebrow.

So Roger stops his teasing, and gets up to crawl between Brian’s legs, catching his lips in a kiss. He’s got his hands flat on Brian’s stomach, creeping up before he pinches his nipples cruelly.

“Fuck!” Brian yelps, “What was that for?”

Roger sits back on his heels and looks level at him.

“You made me come all the way over here to kiss you.”

“You’re such a brat.” Brian says with a shake of his head, dodging Roger’s attempts at another kiss ad shuffling sideways so he can lay his legs down together, and Roger’s left outside of them, disappointed. He pouts, and Brian gestures to his lap.

“Well come here then.” He says, like it’s obvious, and Roger allows himself a small smile of victory as he straddles his hips, and feels Brian’s hands grab his arse to pull him close, close enough to feel the forming bulge in his jeans.

“Someone’s excited.” he mocks, and Brian squeezes his grip in response.

“If you will insist on wearing clothes that are three sizes too small, I’m going to want to fuck the living daylights out of you.”

“Strong words. Guess I’m receiving tonight?”

“I mean, only if you want.”

They’ve tried it both ways, and Roger would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy feeling Brian writhe underneath him, the hot vice of his arse, but right now he wants to get fucked. So he nods.

“Oh, I do.” And then, only half serious, “If I’m still conscious by the end I’ll be disappointed.”

Brian grins at his ridiculousness, and leans forward to kiss him quickly.

“You’re so fucking filthy.”

“You’re so fucking _hard_.” Roger shoots back, with an accompanying roll of his hips, relishing the hard length through the jeans.

“I’ve got to catch you up then, I guess.”

His mouth is on Roger’s neck then, teeth grazing the skin, stubble burning fucking deliciously but he has to force himself to pull back.

“Ah, ah, no marks, Bri.” He groans, and he feels Brian’s hands and jaw tighten at the reminder that he has to share

“When are you seeing him next?”

“Tomorrow.” He grimaces, but for some reason the thought of fucking Tim the day after Brian makes him rock hard; before he can think about what a complete slutty mess that makes him Brian’s hands are under his shirt, twisting his nipples and shooting heat to his crotch in the same way as teeth on his neck do, but with less incriminating evidence.

And then they’re kissing, all searching tongues and no unnecessary foreplay, Brian still rolling the sensitive buds of his nipples between finger and thumb and making him let out frankly embarrassing high little moans which he swallows again in the movements of their mouths. Brian doesn’t quite know the thing he has for his hair being pulled like Tim does, and loves to exploit, but Roger decides it’s _fine_ as his large hands roam lower instead, down the sides of his torso, one resting on his waist, thumb just skating over the sensitive softness of his stomach, the other reaching back under his waistband and into his underwear. Or at least trying to.

“Why are your jeans so tight?” Brian hisses in frustration, and Roger figures its probably a combination of the stir fry and his hard cock making the button dig uncomfortably into his belly so he stands reluctantly to peel them off, close to losing his balance. Brian follows, whipping his shirt over his head, and Roger takes in his slim chest with his curious hands as he leans up to kiss him, almost whining when the head of his dick brushes Brian’s denim clad erection through the thin cotton of his briefs.

There are hands turning him and laying him down on the bed, and it’s not quite the manhandling that Tim knows makes him fucking _randy_ , but it’s close enough, and as Brian climbs atop him on his hands and knees and presses a kiss to the sliver of stomach on display whilst holding his gaze, Roger wouldn’t be anywhere else.

He squirms, lifting his hips because they’re so close to the warmth of Brian’s bare chest and God does he want to rub himself off like that at some point. All he manages is to wriggle out of his t-shirt and lay back down to have his chest littered in hot, open mouthed kisses.

“I’m not leaving a mark.” Brian reassures him, murmuring it into the skin of his stomach, and Roger tangles a hand in his hair, letting himself focus on his hands’ movements carding through the curls because he can see now that his jeans are off that there’s a damp patch of precum on the front of his briefs and if he focuses too much on the way Brian’s tongue is laving over his feverish skin he might just jizz his pants.

“Ah—fuck—” he bites out as Brian scrapes deathly gentle teeth down the slant of his hipbone, and he has to tug his hair in warning because if Brian sucks him off he’s going to cum within minutes.

“If you blow me, I’ll cum.” He huffs out, slightly self-consciously, and Brian looks up with a wicked smile.

“Will you now?” he asks, dragging his mouth to the waistband of his briefs and Roger tugs painfully hard on his hair, from the little hiss he lets out.

“Yessssss.” Roger whines back, shifting his hips to try and get them away from the hot, wet heat of Brian’s mouth and only really succeeding in rubbing the tip of his cock against the wet cotton in a way that makes him gasp.

Brian has decided to stop teasing, though, and moves up to kiss the desperate little sounds from his mouth, before pulling back to look into his eyes earnestly.

“If I fuck you tonight, will he know? If you two shag tomorrow?” He’s slightly breathless but deadly serious, and Roger doesn’t really have an answer for him.

“Not sure.” He replies, pulling his briefs down his legs and wincing at the cool air, “Don’t think you’re quite _that_ big.”

Brian slots a still-clothed knee between his legs that he ruts up against, leaning to kiss the juncture of his neck and covering the whole of his body. He speaks into his ear, low and gravelly, and Roger wishes he’d just stop fucking worrying about what Tim is going to think and take his trousers off and fuck him already, but Brian seems to have superhuman stamina.

“Don’t want him to know all the dirty things you’ve been up to.” He says, and Rog’s hips jerk at the comment.

“I just won’t let him fuck me tomorrow.” He manages.

Brian’s eyes darken and he shakes his head like he’s changed his mind.

“No, do. I want to see if he’ll notice.”

And all Roger can manage is a slightly shocked, breathy laugh as he watches Brian peel off his jeans and underwear.

“Alright.”

Brian settles himself beside Roger and hitches up his leg before he presses two fingers into him, slick and sloppy with lube and making him flinch at the burn as they stretch him open, pushing slowly but steadily, until they’re into the last knuckle. Brian’s fingers are deliciously long, and whilst Tim can slam his prostate while he’s fucking him, he can’t seek it out the way Brian does now, applying moments of pressure that make Roger’s hips buck and his cock jump and leak. When he presses a third in the stretch burns and hurts, but he loves the way all three feel curling inside him, the way Brian’s watching and how he must look, hips lifted off the bed as he tries to fuck himself down on the fingers, chest flushed and heaving, hair stuck to his forehead.

And then Brian’s slicking up his cock, and Roger thinks he might be drooling as he watches it, heavy and hot and ruddy pressing up against his stomach and as he leans forward over Roger, hanging between his legs before Brian uses one hand to guide it to Roger’s hole and the other to hook Roger’s leg over his shoulder. His thighs protest, he doesn’t usually spread this wide with Tim, and he uses his hands to hold his cheeks apart, feeling Brian’s guiding fingers and where the tip of his dick is splitting him open.

“Jesus, fuck, go slowly.” He groans, as Brian presses in, and he does, thumb rubbing circles on his calf.

“I am, just let me—” Brian’s voice breaks off as he shuts his eyes in concentration, and Roger knows exactly the focus needed to not just explode right there, in the tight vice of his hole, because it was him pressing into Brian just last week and the memory of it makes his dick leak.

“Let you what?” he breathes, and Brian cracks an eye open once he’s used to the feeling, Roger assumes.

“Make you feel good.” He says, and the sentiment makes Roger’s stomach flutter, “Relax.”

Which is easier said than done but he tries, breath coming in hot little pants until Brian’s in far enough to start rocking gently against him. He hasn’t managed to take all of him yet – Brian’s got considerable length and they never seem to have the time to spare to work up to it, besides, he definitely doesn’t need anything more to make him climax, but tonight they’ve got time to spare so he braces a hand on Brian’s chest to get his attention.

“Wanna try.”

“What?”

“All of you.”

“He’ll know.” Brian breathes, like he’s in awe of the idea, and Roger knows he’s right because he’ll be sore tomorrow and that will be almost impossible to hide, but he kisses the doubts out of Brian’s mouth.

“Don’t care.”

So Brian presses further in, and _Christ_ does it hurt, but he seems to notice and slicks up the area with more lube and then it’s stretching and aching but he’s never felt so fucking good as he feels Brian bottom out with a low groan.

“You’re so fucking _tight_ —” he manages through gritted teeth and Roger is only too aware of that fact but he can feel Brian’s thighs against his and it’s so good as he starts to move, blissfully slowly and carefully, Roger clenched around him, getting faster as he gets more comfortable.

“Please,” Roger manages, but doesn’t get to say much else and doesn’t need to, because Brian knows exactly what he needs and finds a rhythm that makes both of them moan in time with the creaking of the mattress springs. He hoists Roger’s other leg over his shoulder with an ease that makes Roger flush even more than he is already, and this is where Brian finds the roughness that Tim knows Roger loves, as he bends him in half and fucks him fast and steady.

Roger’s been holding out on touching himself, scared he’ll finish too soon and ruin it, but Brian leans down to kiss him, tongue licking deep into his mouth and moaning and he can’t control himself any more, reaching between their bodies to tug himself off as he feels Brian pound into him over and over.

Brian’s breath is hot and wet in the crook of Roger’s neck where he’s buried his face and he’s muttering filth into his ear, and then his dick hits his prostate at just the right angle and Roger’s coming, hand tight around his cock as it spills ropes between their bodies and biting down on the meat of Brian’s shoulder to stop himself from keening. After another couple of shallower thrusts, because Roger knows his orgasm has probably made him too tight for Brian to fully stay in, Brian’s pulling out and jerking himself until he spills on Roger’s stomach too, moaning his name into his mouth in open, desperate kisses.

There’s some satisfaction that Brian collapsing on top of him means that his stomach is going to be just as much of a sticky mess.

Roger smiles a sated grin as Brian raises his head to kiss him, but his legs are definitely feeling shaky and he is going to be royally sore. There are sure fingers tracing circles on his skin which keep him grounded, because he’s feeling a bit wobbly, but Brian just lets him ride it out until he feels human again enough to sit up.

“Shower?” he asks, and Roger nods.

“Mm.”

“Then I’ll head.”

He hadn’t even thought about that. He doesn’t want Brian to just _leave_ , especially straight after a shag, like that’s the only reason he’s there. He wants those hands grounding him.

“Stay the night?” he asks, surprised at how scratchy and small his voice sounds. He’s not usually so whacked out after sex, but the sex isn’t usually like that.

Brian presses a kiss to his forehead, not in need of any more convincing.

They shower, and then they nick Freddie’s hairdryer because Roger doesn’t much fancy sleeping on the same pillow as a wet poodle and it turns into some kind of battle of hot air, and eventually they end up, Roger in Brian’s shirt and Brian in a clean one from Roger’s drawer, nose to nose under the covers.

Breathing slow and steady, Roger assumes Brian’s asleep which is why he watches him, seeing how his eyes move under his eyelids, realising it’s been so long since he looked that he can’t remember how Tim looks when he sleeps anymore.

He has a minor heart attack, then, when Brian cracks open an eye.

"You need to tell him."

The sentence lingers in the air. It’s not an attack, it’s classically Brian – non-judgemental, matter of fact – but it’s so heavy. Roger turns onto his back. It feels like the air is being pressed out of his lungs.

"I will." He says, but he doesn’t even convince himself.

"No, Roger. Look at me. You need to tell him."

He’s looking, and feeling like a fucking child as the corners of his eyes burn so he responds with indignance because it’s easy.

"Why? Isn't this fun, just messing around?"

The whine in his voice makes him cringe, and he feels Brian inch closer.

"Yes, it's fun, it's--"

"So why ruin it?”

He turns back, and searches Brian’s face for an inch of leniency. “Why can't we just carry on messing around, where no-one else needs to know about it?"

A long suffering sigh, and then:

"We need to grow up."

Those are Roger’s least favourite words in probably the whole entire history of the world. If that makes him immature, so be it. If it makes him a moral reprobate, a child for the rest of his life, he doesn’t care, because at least he’s not fucking boring.

"Ugh, God, why?" he asks, with semi-faked disgust. But Brian’s eyes are serious and the heaviest they’ve ever been as he opens his mouth to speak.

"Because I think I'm falling in love with you."

Roger knows what he’s supposed to say. He’s supposed to say it back, because that’s what you do. The first time he said it to Tim it was in the middle of the best sex he’d ever had, fresh turned twenty and pressed against the older man’s bedroom wall, and Tim had laughed and said it back into the shell of his ear, making him dizzy and weak.

If he says it to Brian now, he doesn’t know if he’d be lying, which frightens the shit out of him, but it makes everything so much more dangerous if he admits it, lets it drag him down to the bottom of somewhere dangerous and vast. So he says something really terribly pathetic, because he’s scared.

"Then stop it. Now."

Brian, to his credit, only flinches slightly.

"No." he says simply.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck, Roger’s brain thinks in overdrive panic mode, because he really needs to get Brian to stop before it reaches the ultimate conclusion.

"Why?"

"Because."

"Why?"

"Because—” Brian sighs, and he looks genuinely annoyed now, which Roger hopes will put him off him, but he carries on: “Because I lied, because it's already happened."

Oh no.

"You're..."

"In love with you."

Fuck. Oh, Jesus loving fuck.

It’s like the most intense euphoria and terror swirling in the pit of his stomach and making him want to be sick. It’s the best thing in the world. It’s going to bloody kill him.

"Fuck, Bri."

"That is exactly the reaction I wanted, thanks Rog."

He really is pissed, and turns onto his back, Roger thinks, so he can hide his expression. Guilt flares in the pit of his stomach for being so callous.

"I don't really know what that means." He says, for wont of something better. It’s not what Brian wants to hear, but it’s at least honest. He really doesn’t know what the fuck people are on about when they talk about being in love, whether it’s something more than just finding the favourite person in your life and sticking with them. It’s like it’s some intangible plane that only some have access to, and Roger’s never been able to reach. Tim was the closest he’d ever gotten, until Bri started looking at him the way he did.

"You love Tim, don't you?" Brian asks softly to the ceiling, and Roger sighs, because it’s a question he’s asked himself a thousand times over the past month alone.

"I think so." He says, truthfully, “I really care about him.”

It’s a cop-out, but it’s also the only answer he’s been able to give himself that doesn’t make him sound like a fraud.

"So why don't you feel guilty about this?"

Roger’s temper spikes at the idea that Brian doesn’t think he feels any remorse for what he’s doing, so he shoots back.

"Why don't you? You're his best friend."

"I _do_.” Brian’s hands come up to rub over his eyes, and from this angle he looks tired, exhausted, “But I'm not a good enough person to stop. And there's the love thing, too."

Roger stops himself from pressing a kiss to his temple, which is all he wants to do.

"I do as well. I'm not heartless.” he manages instead, then loses all his eloquence as he tries to best explain the hundreds of comparisons he’s drawn between them, “I just... I think about him... and then I think about you and I... I don't know. There's something else with you."

Brian looks at him, and Roger wants the mattress to swallow him whole.

"I think that might be what love means."

If he’s right, Roger is terrified. Even if he’s wrong, he’s terrified anyway.

"I care about him so much."

His voice is pathetic in his ears.

"Then you need to tell him."

"Brian."

"Or no more of this."

It’s dangerously quiet, the threat. But it crushes him. If there’s no more Brian then what was all of this for?

"Are you joking?” he asks, but he knows the answer, and Brian turns to look at him one last time. In the dim light, Roger doesn’t know if he’s imagining the tears in his eyes.

“I can’t lie here knowing that you’re—we’re hurting him. And if you can, then I don’t think I can go along with that.”

And he turns over, leaving Roger to trace the joints of his spine through cotton.

“Brian?” he tries.

Silence, and then.

“Goodnight, Rog.”

Fuck.


	3. friday 6th february, 1970

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> are you ready to fall in love with tim. strap in folks.
> 
> figured we needed some more background of just what roger is fucking up by cheating so HERE WE GO
> 
> little queer history lesson for context: (specifically male) homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967 in the uk, BUT the age of consent was 21 for homosexuals and 16 for heterosexuals we love it! so technically rog is still underage. it wasn't until 1998 that the age of consent was lowered to 18, and 16 in 2001 (look it up if you're interested please queer history is my JAM also female homosexuality wasn't decriminalised bc it was never criminalised bc they didn't believe lesbians existed. not sure whether that's better or worse)
> 
> BIG SWEAR IN THIS i just feel i have to warn bc freddie has a potty mouth. also a bitta internalised homophobia and TW for slurs
> 
> also i feel this goes without saying but i saw other people do this on their fics so - please don't send this to anyone in queen or whatever?? that's whack 
> 
> love u thank u for the comments and support xoxoxoxxo

Roger wakes alone and drowning in ice cold water.

It’s only when he sees Freddie holding an empty glass beside his bed as he sits up spluttering does he realised he’s thrown the whole fucking thing over him. The bed is still empty, though.

“Wh—guh—” he manages, and Freddie sets the glass down with frightening force on his bedside table. He’s stony-faced, slept-on eyeliner smudged, dressing gown on.

“You fucking arsehole.”

Roger’s brain is still trying to piece everything together through the cold water running down his face, but he is pretty sure he fell asleep next to someone, and his suspicions are confirmed as he recognises the shirt he’s wearing as distinctly not his own.

“Where—” he begins, but Freddie doesn’t let him finish.

“Brian left, which is the least fucking punishment you deserve. Come with me.” He grabs Roger’s wrist in a painful grip and, still too dazed to resist, Roger follows, starting to shiver slightly now.

He’s expecting some horrible nightmare scenario like Tim waiting in the living room, but instead it’s so much worse as Freddie takes him into the corridor and presses play on the answering machine.

 

_"Hey, Rog, you haven’t called so I assume I’ll just meet you at the restaurant, I’m heading out now so I’ll see you in 30."_

 

_"Hi, I’m in a phonebox and haven’t got long cause the waitress is holding our table inside, are you coming? Call the restaurant and let me know, please."_

 

_"I know you’re probably just asleep but I’m fucking worried, Rog, call me when you get this."_

 

_"Hey, Rog, Tim again, they had to give the table to people waiting. I’m back home if you want to let me know where the fuck you are."_

 

_"Hey. It’s Tim, sorry about that last one, just want to know if you’re alright. I love you."_

 

If they have panic attacks for guilt, Roger thinks this is what they’d feel like. He’s a biologist, he’d know, and right now his chest is tightening and heart rate spiking and actually this might just be the beginnings of a regular panic attack so he forces his breathing to slow down, all while Freddie watches him, unimpressed with his theatrics. There are cold droplets running down his back and it’s now that his body decides to remind him of his and Brian’s misadventures, so now he’s sore and wet and cold and needs to prove he’s at least somewhat aware of his wrongdoings.

He gathers enough breath to speak.

“I didn’t—”

“You didn’t call him, yes, I gathered that much, darling.” Freddie cuts in again, both arms crossed over his chest, and fuck, he is not letting Roger have anything this morning.

“I—” he tries again.

“You’re a first-class cunt, is what you are.”

“Freddie…”

He knows Freddie is trying to help him, and that he deserves all the criticism that’s coming to him, but all he needs him to do right now is be his best friend and ignore his heinous wrongdoings and just give him a fucking hug. And maybe a towel.

He remembers Brian’s face, in shadowy blue monochrome looking at him across the pillow. The earnestess with which he told him he loved him, a love that Roger resolutely does not deserve right now, and thinks about Tim, Tim laughing, Tim kissing him and he can’t stop his eyes from burning, trying to blink away the tears that come but only succeeding in making his breathing even more shallow and hiccupy. Freddie watches, unforgiving.

“Don’t you dare turn on the waterworks to get me to feel sorry for you.” He says sternly, and Roger rubs at his eyes angrily.

“I’m not, I…” he starts, defensively, then remembers the whole of their conversation last night and his voice is wobbly again, “Brian said… I’m not seeing him until I’ve come clean.”

Something in Freddie’s face softens, which Roger knows means he’s reached peak patheticness, and he walks into the bathroom, leaving Roger forlorn. He returns a moment later with a towel, and wraps it around his shoulders, his arms following suit.

Roger sags against him and buries his face in the crook of his neck, as Freddie rubs him dry in short, abrupt movements.

“At least one of you has a brain.” he mutters, and so much for not feeling sorry for him, Roger thinks, as he presses a kiss to his forehead and steps back.

“What do I do?” he asks, knowing the answer, and Freddie holds his gaze.

“Well you can’t tell him right now. You go and you apologise. Now. But for the love of sweet fucking God, dear, you take off the shirt of the man you’ve been screwing behind his back.”

He changes out of the shirt, and if he inhales a little to smell Brian for strength he’d never admit it because it’s the most nauseating thing he’s probably ever done. When he’s dressed, he sticks his head around the kitchen door.

Freddie’s opened the kitchen window and is cradling something in his arms. Roger stops and watches him and realises it’s the cat that comes by the flat every few days, largely because Freddie keeps leaving out tuna steaks for it on the windowsill. He’s singing something to it under his breath.

Freddie. Indescribable, irreplaceable Freddie, their friendship based half on a plane of stoically riding out each other’s bullshit, and half on one of deep and abiding love. And also the one time they shagged is mixed in there too. Maybe.

“I’m off.” He announces, and Freddie turns, cat stretching in his arms. He appraises the ensemble.

“Smart.” He decides. Roger knows that’s the most compliments he’s going to get, so he goes to leave, but Freddie catches up with him in the corridor.

He thrusts a piece of paper at him, written on in ridiculously neat cursive, and Roger knows he’s been holding out on giving this to him as another kind of punishment.

“Brian left this.” He says, and rushes away before Roger has a chance to say anything, leaving him with the note in his hands.

 

_Rog. I meant what I said last night. Bri. x_

 

He doesn’t know whether he means the threat, or the love, or what part of it, but it still makes his stomach swoop like he’s missed a step on the staircase.

He shoves the note in his pocket and walks out the door.

* * *

 

Tim’s is a chilly twenty-minute tube ride away, and once Roger stops off to find a bouquet that doesn’t look like it’s been bought from a petrol station and a pack of croissants that aren’t completely crushed it’s verging on thirty-five. He can see the people watching him on the train, smiling fondly, no doubt under the impression that some girl is going to be the smitten receiving end on a heartfelt romantic gesture, and he’d like very much to crawl up inside his own skin. He’s fucking cold, having underestimated the weather’s viciousness, and by the time he gets to the building the note he’s clutching in his pocket is the only thing giving him strength. Ironically.

He presses the buzzer and prays for forgiveness.

“Tim? You don’t have to let me in, but I will sit out here until you do. I’m a really, really shit person, Tim. I was fucking awful and I’m sorry. And I love you.”

A low fuzzy noise lets him know the intercom line is open, but it’s a good ten seconds before the crackly voice comes through.

“Where were you?” it asks eventually, and Roger’s not quite ready to see him. If his voice over answering machine and intercom is making him so panicked and overwhelmed he doesn’t know what he’ll do with him right there, but he has no alternative. He has to do it.

“I can explain.” He lies.

The responding click of the door is a terrifying victory.

He trudges up the stairs, running over the lines in his head and by the time he gets there Tim is already stood in a small gap between door and frame.

His hair is dishevelled, sleep in his eyes and he’s in his pyjamas which makes Roger want to lie down on the floor face first and scream. Instead, he approaches him like one might approach a wild animal: apprehensively and holding the food out in front of him.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

“Yes.” Tim says, face blank, but makes no attempt to open the door any further.

There’s a moment of silence.

“Should I grovel?”

Tim fixes him with an unimpressed glare to rival Freddie’s.

“Roger.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

There must be something pathetic in his desperate apologies because Tim rubs at his eyes and sighs.

“Okay, alright, apology accepted.”

That was scarily easy.

“Do you forgive me?”

Tim very nearly laughs, but it’s bitter and sharp.

“Slow down there, cowboy.” He says, “You’ve got to earn that.”

Maybe not so easy. He just looks so tired, that’s what’s making Roger’s heart clench, so tired and exasperated, like Brian last night, and Roger thinks maybe it’s his fault, maybe he drains people just by being around them.

“Can I come in?” he asks, small and simple.

The door swings open.

Tim’s flat is blissfully free of the clutter of his own, but that doesn’t mean it’s tidy. It’s standard student living, except he lives with three stoners so it has triple the bongs, but other than that it’s nice, further out than Roger’s but that also means they can afford to have the heating on. It’s stuffed with memories, though. He can’t help but remember Tim tucking him up passed out on the sofa so he didn’t throw up on his sheets, when Roger drummed on the wall so hard it left little dents in the plaster. He traces them with a finger as he loiters in the hall.

The conversation has died a horrible death and Roger knows it’s time for the explanation so he gets it all out in one, facing away from Tim and into the wall..

“It was a killer day and someone suggested we go for drinks because we’ve just started the new unit and don’t know each other at all, and I just said yes and completely forgot we made plans.”

It’s what he decided on. It’s not perfect. It’s not even good. But it works, because Tim doesn’t question that Roger would do that to him. Which is slightly worrying.

“We made them last week.” he says, exasperatedly, and Roger turns to look at him.

“I know,” he whines, “Which is too long ago for it to be in the front of my tiny stupid mind. I’m sorry.”

Tim narrows his eyes.

“So I’m not in the front of your mind?” he asks, and Roger doesn’t know if it’s a trick question because who in a relationship thinks about their significant other all the damn time. He realises it isn’t, though, when Tim continues to stare at him, expecting an answer. For once, he tells the truth.

“Well—Not all the time, no. Am I in yours?”

This is where Tim realises the unrealistic expectation of what he’s just said, and Roger sees it flash across his face.

“…Mostly.”

Roger pokes him in the arm.

“Liar.”

He breaks with (if Roger’s not mistaken) a fond sigh.

“I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you.” Roger holds out the shopping bag he’s holding. “I brought croissants.” He lowers the bag. “I love you.”

He leans forward hesitantly, and is surprised that Tim doesn’t pull back, but he still takes the kiss with unresponsive lips. Once Roger makes it clear that he’s not shifting until he gets reciprocation, he kisses back reluctantly, making the pit of Roger’s stomach ache.

“I thought something had happened to you.” He says.

The ache in Roger’s stomach intensifies.

“I’m fine.” he reassures, and then, for the hundredth time: “I’m sorry.”

“Stop that.” Tim shakes his head, and Roger wants to cry because he really shouldn’t stop – if Tim knew what he was really apologising for he wouldn’t tell him to stop apologising like it didn’t matter. But Tim doesn’t know. He just stands there, inches away from Roger’s face but feeling further away than he ever has, everything about him screaming safe and reasonable and right.

“You smell good.” Roger manages eventually, because he does: he smells like fresh sheets.

“You look good.” Tim replies, which is a lie but sweet all the same, and he smiles a little. Roger smiles right back, and thinks about smiling into Brian’s eyes last night, and wants to cry. Again.

So he takes a deep inhale and laces a hand into Tim’s, forcing a smirk onto his face that he hopes is convincing.

“I _can_ grovel, if you want me to. I think you’d enjoy it. I’m good on my knees.”

Tim just looks at him. He knows him too well.

“Let’s eat.” He says.

The croissants are a hit, as expected, and the breakfast isn’t as terrible as Roger anticipated. It’s quiet, he’ll give it that, but it is still 9am, and he knows Tim wouldn’t be up before 11 unless he’d come calling. So they eat, and every time Tim tries to catch his eye Roger looks back down to the plate, because he’s afraid Tim has something in him, some power that will make him tell the truth.

Tim licks his finger to pick up the last few flakes of pastry on the plate, and Roger watches them disappear into his mouth.

“What are you doing on the 14th?” Tim asks, casually, and Rog has to remember why that’s significant.

“Valentine’s?”

“Mm.”

He doesn’t know whether this is a trick question, but he takes it as serious.

“I assume we’re having dinner?”

Tim pushes his plate away.

“Just wanted to check you didn’t have any drinks planned with your coursemates.” He says, and there’s a glint in his eyes that says he’s joking, but Rog knows he’s still on thin fucking ice so there’s no harm in apologising one more time.

“Tim, I’m—"

“You’re sorry,” he interrupts, and lets out a little exasperated laugh, “I know. I’m joking. I’m allowed.”

Roger knows he’s trying to lighten the mood, but the guilt is deep rooted in his stomach now.

“I deserve it.” He says. God, he hates himself

“Hey, come on.” Tim says, rightfully pissed that he’s the one who’s been screwed over but Roger’s the one fishing for his sympathy, but the edge to his voice is still hard and Roger can’t take it half as well as he should be able to, so he’s really crying now, trying to tilt his head back to blink away the tears.

But Tim can’t even be angry even though it’s what Roger fucking needs, he just stands up and comes over to hug him, still sat down.

“Hey, Rog, come here, what’s all this for?” He asks, and _God, it hurts_ because there’s nothing he can do to help unless he tells him, so he just reaches up and grips one of his forearms like it’ll drag him back to somewhere safe.

“Dunno, sorry, I feel so shit.” He mumbles, cheek to Tim’s chest, thumb brushing over his arm, and feels a kiss dropped in his hair.

“I forgive you. It’s okay.”

Roger can’t even enjoy the victory of Tim forgiving him through the thick fog of guilt, because he’s had to achieve it through lies and tears so it doesn’t mean anything.

“No, not just that I—I’m just so run down at the moment.” And it’s not even a lie, because he is. He’s cold and he’s achey and Tim feels like a warm lie-in with his hands combing through his hair.

“Have you got labs today?” he asks, and Roger drinks in the vibrations of his voice in his chest.

“Just lectures.”

“Well I’m not going to mine with you like this. I definitely don’t think you should.”

He’s too good. He’s too good and Roger needs to either run or tell him, anything but let him pet his hair and look after him when he’s weepy.

“M’gonna fail.” He mumbles, pressing his nose into Tim’s shirt, and the vibrations come again, a safe hum.

“So it _really_ doesn’t matter, does it?”

Roger manages a short laugh, and bites out a sarcastic:

“Flawless logic.”

“Thank you.”

Tim comes to crouch between his legs and brushes the hair out of his face, cupping it in both hands and kissing him. Roger pulls him back when he tries to break apart, and makes the kiss twice as long, so when Tim does look at him his cheeks are slightly flushed. “You said you were going to grovel, too.” He adds, and Roger sniffs and laughs.

“You really want me to blow you when I’m crying?” he asks. He knows he looks a mess, and he feels even worse inside, but he’ll do it, for the apology, to make Tim feel good.

“Maybe it turns me on.” Tim jokes, smile curling up the edges of his mouth, and Roger pushes his shoulder gently.

“Shaddup.” He wipes his nose with a sleeve. “Sorry about this. I should be the one comforting you, I—”

But Tim kisses him again, short and chaste and heartbreaking.

“You shut up. Blow off your lectures, spend the day here, make it up to me. I’ve missed you.”

Roger can’t really say no.

* * *

 

_Roger is nineteen and hot blooded and horny and Tim is twenty one and plays bass like the notes go straight to his bones. It's been three weeks since they started playing together and every time Tim sings something funny goes off in Roger's stomach and he nearly loses his beat, which is really not good, you know, for a band._

_He's 99% sure Tim is gay. He's pretty sure both of them are, Brian too, with his long legs and badly straightened hair, but he has stories and songs about ex-girlfriends that Tim keeps quiet about, and doesn't look at him like he wants to bend him over the drum riser. At least not yet._

_It's May, hot and sticky, sky hanging low over London and Roger's just flipped off any profitable future as a dentist by switching courses, meaning he has no exams and gets to spend his days day drinking and getting laid. Speaking of._

_They're winding up a rehearsal, Brian's shot off early to get some work done so it's Roger, shirtless and sweaty, packing up the kit and Tim, vest clinging to him, supposedly helping, but in reality watching him in a way that makes him flush. And Roger doesn't flush easily._

_Luckily they don't have to lug this kit back to his flat - it belongs to the music department they're practising in, but it means the crash is always too low and he doesn't get to keep Tim's company all the way back to his flat the way he'd really fucking like to._

_Roger is hot and horny and nineteen and Tim is watching him bend over like he wants to taste the inside of his thighs and he feels noticeably hard in his jean shorts, which Tim has noticeably not noted._

_Unless he's particularly blessed in that department, he's quite excited too._

_They're alone, and it's 6pm on a sweltering summer's evening and they're not going to be disturbed, so Roger decides this is the time. Out with it._

_Tim has been holding the same stand for the past ten minutes, and Roger flicks away a cigarette and turns to him._

_"I don't know if I have the right impression of you, Tim." he says._

_Tim starts out of his thoughts and raises his eyebrows._

_"And what impression is that?"_

_Roger is not coy. He can be, if he wants, if the situation requires it, he even quite enjoys it sometimes, but it's always put on, never his instinctive approach to anything._

_So it's with brazen eye contact that he walks up to Tim and puts a palm on his chest. He tenses._

_"If you're not interested, you'd better tell me now before I make a dick of myself."_

_Roger lets a finger trail down his stomach, and hook on his waistband. He knows Tim's answer before he says it._

_"I am."_

_It's a little shaky, but from excitement or enthusiasm Roger can't tell._

_"What?"_

_He wants to hear him say it._

_"Interested."_

_"In?"_

_"You."_

_There we go._

_"You look like you want to eat me."_

_He does. Pupils blown, eyes no longer worried about being caught looking. He puts down the stand._

_"Speak for yourself," he says, "What would you have done if I'd have said no?_

_Roger smirks. Like that was an option._

_"Definitely not this."_

_He steps forward, and presses an open mouthed kiss to the line of his neck, tongue darting out to taste salt. Tim shudders underneath him, and Roger feels hands come up to cradle his jaw._

_Tim looks at him, close, brushes a strand of hair out of his eye and Roger's melting slightly._

_"You look like a girl."_

_It's barely a whisper, and Roger smirks. He knows he's pretty. The boys like it. The girls die for it. Tim seems in awe of it, and Roger tries not to think about how it's so he can pretend he's straight._

_"I promise I'm not" he reassures, crowding their hips closer so Tim can feel the bulge in his jeans. He hums._

_"I hope you're not."_

_Roger's curious, so he asks._

_"Would that make it easier?"_

_He seems to be throbbing with something desperate for release, voice low as he speaks._

_"I don't know if it would make it more or less confusing." And then, thumb tracing Roger's lower lip, "Can I kiss you?_

_"Yes."_

_The kiss is pent up passion, soft at first like Tim's afraid to break him but quickly turning, deepening, breath caught between mouths and one of Tim's hands snaking down to pull into Roger's waist._

_"I want you."_

_God, that is so fucking hot. Chests, hips flush, sweat glistening on the curves of his arm muscles and Roger licks his lips._

_"Now? he asks_

_"Yes." Rushed, but then, softer: "Is that too much?"_

_Roger's head shake is enthusiastic to say the least._

_"No, it's... Here?"_

_"Yes."_

_Fucking on school property. He hasn't done this since clandestine changing room handjobs._

_"I've never done anything more than blow a guy," He admits, but doesn't tell him about the handjobs or the fact that the guy was his flatmate in a debauched red wine night in. He feels like Tim should be more experienced, but he's not sure, he just doesn't want to give him the idea that he has any idea what he's doing besides wanting and he doesn't know whether it's what he said but Tim kisses him hard and deep, licking into his mouth._

_He pulls back, breathless. Roger rubs against his hips._

_"So start there."_

_He sits back on the drum riser, legs spread. His nipples are hard through the vest. His hair hangs dark. Roger knows where to go from here. He steps forward, looking down at the line Tim's hair makes down his torso._

_"Gonna see if I fuck like a girl, too?" he says, and Tim's breath catches as he reaches a hand to ghost the outline of his painfully hard cock._

_"You've got such a dirty mouth." he breathes. Awe._

_Roger does try and usually he'd have a retort, but Tim's eyes are hungry and raking him up and down and he can't concentrate on anything other than how hard he is. He sinks to his knees, Tim undoes his fly and then it's all mouth and hands, tongue, lips and fingertips and thinking thrown out the window as he takes him down. There's a hand on the back of his head, fisting his hair. If anyone walked in now, they'd be fucked, Rog is technically a minor and they're on university property but the thought just makes him whine and leak in his shorts and if that makes him an exhibitionist with a taste for danger, so be it._

_Later, on Tim's bed, it's slow and exploratory and luxurious. Here it's getting off, expounding the frustration like Tim does down his throat, and Roger does into his hand on his lap a minute later._

_Later, two months later, Roger tells him he loves him, held up against a bedroom wall._

_Later, when they've been together for long enough, they tell Brian their first fuck was in their rehearsal room. He blanches._

_Later, Tim would never even kiss him in a public place, empty or otherwise. Too much to lose._

_Later, in winter months, Roger misses the heat of that room._

_Later he fucks it all up._

_Later._

* * *

 

Now, they go out for lunch, and it’s blissful. Roger steals a coat; he loves wearing Tim’s clothes that smell like him (he doesn’t think of Brian’s shirt) and he’s warm as they sit in a café and spend money they don’t have on toasted sandwiches. They talk about Valentine’s, and Roger manages to get through it without crying this time; they talk about stage lights and records and which Clapton solo is the greatest, and Roger tries to get Brian’s fingers out of his head.

They swing by a store filled with guitars that make Tim’s mouth water even more than Rog’s blowjob earlier on did, and Rog watches him play them, headphones on, lost in the strings, wondering how he could ever have stopped loving him.

And then, around three, they head for Kensington Market.

Roger tries to dissuade him, really not in the mood to get petty pissed off Freddie in the same space as Tim, considering the level of dangerous information that he knows, but he insists he needs a new shirt, so Roger prays that Mr Mercury will be lenient.

Their stall is to the far end of the covered market, amidst a ridiculous array of incense vendors and booths that look like they’ve popped up from a bazaar in Marrakesh, and it is a truly characteristic explosion of colour and material. Roger thinks if Freddie had his way, it’s how the whole flat would end up.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear wearing yet another of Roger’s tops and giving the pair a toothy grin as they wind their way over. Roger braces himself and goes for the clothes as a distraction.

“Hallo, Timothy! In the market for a disgustingly beautiful new blouse?” he asks, and wraps him in a hug by way of greeting. He gives Roger a smile, and little else, but Tim doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’m in the market for a boyfriend who won’t forget our dinner dates.” He says.

It’s another joke, and Tim gives his arm a squeeze to let him know as much, but it still lodges sharply underneath his ribs and makes him swallow a spike of shame. Freddie’s eyes flick to his face.

“Cold and cutting, and just what he deserves.” Freddie shoots back to Tim, “I’m glad to hear you’re sufficiently punishing him, darling.”

“Freddie.” Roger warns, shooting him a look, and receiving a defiant one.

“What?” he says, faux-ignorant. He spots the embroidered blazer Roger’s examining and snatches it out of his hands a bit too aggressively, “Don’t even bother trying that, it won’t suit you.”

It would suit him, and he knows Freddie thinks the same because he said so when they nicked it from the charity shop, so he knows this is still part of the tough love treatment that doesn’t look like it’s letting up anytime soon. He decides to prove to Freddie that he’s been successful in his mission, and if he’s bragging a little it’s an added bonus.

“If you count punishing me as letting me blow him as an apology, sign me up.”

Tim’s eyes dart to him, and he mutters a small:

“Roger.”

Freddie, if anything, looks a little more disappointed that he’s using blowjobs to solve his relationship problems.

“Well, glad you’ve found some way to settle your grievances.” He says, sounding the fakest Roger’s ever heard him, before he spots a girl down the other end of the stall, and makes his way over to her. “Yes, my love! That’s twenty, thanking you nicely.”

Tim watches him go, then goes back to the shirts, talking to Roger lowly without meeting his eyes.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“What?” Roger asks, then realises. “Oh calm down, there’s no-one around.”

If Tim’s aggressive paranoia of them being discovered as filthy sodomites were enough of a problem to cause a significant dent in their relationship, it would have done by now, but it’s still fucking annoying. He understands. He’s not naïve. He does know what’s very likely to happen if they walk arm in arm, and what’s nearly inevitable if they kiss in public, but he just thinks Tim needs to pick his battles. A street in his hometown is a big leap from the freedom of the London metropolis. Roger wishes they could go back to their first time, logic and reason thrown out the window and shagging where anyone could walk in, but alas, those sunkissed days are gone.

“Yes, there is.” Tim says, and yeah, okay, he’s right, but, pick your battles, and Roger very much doubts whether anyone in his and Freddie’s bohemian oasis corner of the market is going to give a shit.

“No-one that would _care._ ” he clarifies, but Tim is not convinced.

“You don’t know that.”

They’ve had this argument more times than Roger can probably remember. He knows what it was like, growing up knowing what these wants meant, but things have changed. Laws have changed, attitudes admittedly less so, but Roger’s old enough to tell when he can afford to piss off an old lady versus avoiding a likely queer-bashing.

“We’re not criminals anymore, Tim.” He reminds him, and Tim turns to him, close, eyes narrowed.

“Sorry, how old are you?”

Roger doesn’t really know what to say to that because, technically, legally, Tim has a very valid point. The fact that the technical and legal law is bullshit means nothing apparently. He’s also not sure what Tim is trying to imply using his age leverage, annoyance rising at the implications of naivety as he sets down the trousers he’s looking at with maybe more force than necessary.

“Look, I don’t even know why you wanted to take me out to dinner if when we got there all you were going to do was treat me like I’m your brother or something.”

And now he knows Tim’s pissed from the way he’s struggling to keep his voice down.

“What would you have wanted me to do? Bent you over the table and fucked you in front of everyone? Why does everyone have to know what’s our business?”

Roger’s face burns at the comment, despite knowing Tim doesn’t - can’t - mean it like that, he can’t help but feel ashamed. So he snaps back.

“Now who’s drawing attention?” Tim moves along, picks up another shirt. Roger follows. “It’s not about that. It’s not people being in our business, it’s about not hiding.”

Tim scoffs.

“Sometimes hiding keeps you safe.”

So now they’re fucking fugitives apparently.

“I’m not fucking stupid,” Roger begins, thinking about all of the recent evidence that pints to the contrary and carrying on regardless, “I’ve had the shit kicked out of me a fair few times, Tim, but it’s never made me ashamed of being with you.”

Tim takes a long suffering sigh. The shame thing is a classic, one that comes up time and time again in this argument, and Roger doesn’t think will ever really go away.

“I’d have loved to hold your hand at dinner, Rog.” Tim tells him, with sudden sincerity. He’s thrown for a second, because then he moves in close to continue, voice suddenly measured, “Kiss you. In the restaurant, in front of everyone. But I couldn’t, and it wasn’t cause I was ashamed, it’s cause you _weren’t fucking there_.”

Guilt punches the air out of him for the millionth time today.

“You said you forgave me.” He manages, and Tim is blithe and cutting as he turns to him.

“Well, I lied,” he snaps, “Because you batted your pretty fucking eyelashes at me and I figured it’d be easier.”

And Roger is not about to be beaten at his own game.

“Careful there, Tim, calling me pretty. Don’t want people thinking you’re a _fag_.”

Ah, shit.

Something dangerous flashes behind Tim’s eyes that makes him realise his mistake.

“Don’t—” Tim starts, like he’s choking on the word between his gritted teeth, before turning and walking away.

Tim, to his credit, has a handle on his anger that Roger can only envy. He knows when to leave a situation while it can still be defused, and Rog used to think it was an age thing, but he actually is beginning to think that it’s just because Tim is a decent person, and Roger is an arse.

Freddie hasn’t heard what’s been said, but he sees Tim’s stormy exit and gives Roger a look that says he’s going to be homeless pretty soon if he doesn’t pull his act together.

Shit shit shit.

So, he follows, and finds him outside, cigarette in hand, staring dourly at the pavement.

He leans up against the wall beside him and lights one of his own, and they smoke for a minute before he speaks.

“Sorry.”

“Your word of the day, huh?”

Yup, he deserves that. Roger lets the acrid smoke fill his lungs until they burn. He lets his knuckles clench until they ache. He tries to hurt, to silently tell Tim what he deserves. But all he gets is more forgiveness.

“I’m sorry I can’t be as public as you want me to be.” Tim says, softly, eyes still fixed on his shoes, and Roger wants to kiss that look off his face, which is probably the worst thing to do at this moment. He gets this, when he should be getting a solid sock in the jaw. He smokes.

“It’s alright.” He says. Shit. Utterly shit response.

“It’s not.”

He doesn’t want to agree with him, but he has got a point. Brian swims up in the front of his mind: his face, his smile, his kiss, his touch, the note—

The note.

The note lying in his coat pocket in Tim’s wardrobe.

Shit.

Shitfuckshitfuckshit.

Everything is not alright.

It’s not alright at all.


	4. saturday, 7th february, 1970

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wrote an essay, wrote an exam, got a first on another essay and WROTE AN UPDATE!
> 
> this got very angsty sorry bros, i'm just prolonging until the inevitable shit hits the fan. there's some angsty smut at the end, really don't think it constitutes dub/non-con but rog is deep in the Guilt Hole so idk
> 
> also i literally hate using the word 'pussy' to mean coward bc Misogyny but alas Tim is not so woke, also I love the stickers on the Smile drum kit which inspired a lot of this fic
> 
> thank you so much for your enduring support!!!! love u!!!!!!!!!
> 
> (go listen to Step On Me by Smile if u wanna know why the lyrics get rog so spooked)

_Heighten the crash. Angle the toms. Remember to get the dodgy bass pedal fixed. Screw in the stool. Pick at the letters printed on the snare: ‘DON’T FORGET TO SMILE’. Toms, snare, crash, ride. Don’t think about the jacket still in Tim’s closet. Hi-hat, bass, stool. Don’t remember Brian’s face across the pillow. Sticks. Sweatbands. Don’t forget to smile. Don’t forget to smile._

Fuck slowing down.

No-one else has arrived yet, and Roger’s got the place to himself to crash around as much as he wants – no fingers on fretboards he needs to worry about letting catch up, no-one else to keep in time with. So fuck slowing down.

It’s frustration and sweat and self-loathing that beats itself out onto the skins, guilt that soaks into his sweatbands and makes his hair stick to his face. It’s what makes his ears throb and his shoulders scream and his brain tell him that he’s wearing himself out before the rehearsal, let alone the show tonight, but he doesn’t care. Fuck slowing down. Roger likes it fast.

Roger likes it fast and loud, neither of which he’s been getting since Thursday night because yesterday was a fucking write off after he and Tim argued, to the point where he couldn’t even wheedle his way back into his boyfriend’s flat. The possibility of him finding the note grows with every passing second. Roger brings his sticks down with a grunt.

Maybe he’ll play drums until his arms fall off and he bleeds to death. Maybe he’ll collapse from exhaustion, die a hero in the sweat of the battle. Maybe he’ll come clean and Tim will bludgeon him to death and save him the effort.

All Roger knows is he’s bashing out every inch of his conscience onto his kit, which he hopes is strong enough to take it, and planning how he’s going to get absolutely hammered tonight, when he feels a pair of hands on his shoulders.

He stops playing, but doesn’t turn around, feeling the hands through his damp shirt and trying to work out: Brian or Tim? Are the fingers not quite long enough? Do they both rub their thumb across his skin the same way?

They press into the stiffness of his neck muscles, and now Roger knows it’s Tim from the certainty with which he finds the knot within thirty seconds, taut tendons where they always are. That, and the way he pulls close beside him and presses a kiss to his neck. Roger had almost forgotten that Brian didn’t want to touch a cheater like him.

“Brave move. I could have taken your eye out.” He jokes, but there’s no verbal response, just fingers working away the tension and then teeth and an open mouth sucking on the very visible skin of his neck, which throws his previously certain assumption that this is Tim, because if so, this is a bold Tim indeed.

He turns enough to confirm his guess, and raise an eyebrow in question. At least this means he hasn’t found the note, then.

“Trying to be less of a pussy,” Tim explains, and catches his bottom lip between teeth as they kiss hello properly, before moving back to kissing his neck and _fuck_ , Roger didn’t expect this to be the outcome of that argument, especially since they’ve had it fifty million times before and nothing has changed. But, sure enough, Tim is giving him a hickey in the back room of a pub and Roger wishes his dick would get the message his conscience is trying to send about guilt sex, especially _public_ guilt sex being out of the question, but the primal part of his brain is screaming _May last year and sweat and Tim_. He knows by the way Tim smiles appreciatively as he moves back to look that the mark’s going to be around for a while.

He turns all the way round to look at him, and can almost pretend in this room with no windows that it’s a blazing summer evening outside. Fingers come up to trace the dark patch.

“Bold.” Roger notes, with a dry little smile, setting his sticks down.

“You were really going at it.” Tim says, taking in his damp forehead and tense shoulders, “Everything okay?”

Roger wipes over his face.

“Yeah, just… Missed it.” Which is not untrue. He’s aching to play tonight because playing means he doesn’t have to think, it’s just beats and counts and feeding off each other’s energy in the least complicated way they know how. He doesn’t want to admit that he’s aching to play so he can see Brian again after just over a day because that makes him sound more than a little pathetic.

He leans back in and Tim smiles into the kiss, and they both lose themselves slightly before being brought back by the sound of the door closing.

“Oh—uh, sorry boys.”

Roger, in his attempt to not turn around suspiciously quickly, manages to nonchalantly keep his back to Brian for a full two minutes before acknowledging him. From the sound of it he and Tim have shared one of those odd clasped hand man-hugs, but as Rog swivels round on the stool the most he gives him is a wave, unwilling to venture beyond the safe barrier of his kit.

_Don’t forget to smile._

“Hey, Bri.” He musters, and receives a smile in response that makes his chest flutter.

“Alright, Rog.”

Brian’s straightened his hair, which Rog has tried to tell him time and time again makes him look like a Grade-A nonce, but it’s only now that he realises what makes it so jarring is how disturbingly similar it makes him and Tim look. He wonders if that’s why Brian has done it, then checks his ego. He can’t help but stare as Brian sets up, tunes his strings minutely and twangs over them the way he does before he’s plugged into the amp. It would be poetic to say that it’s only now that he realises how much he’s missed him, but he’s actually been feeling it hard consistently for the past two days, and seeing him at such close proximity without being able to touch feels like it’s being punched into his ribs.

They run over 'April Lady' first, which is relatively smooth by all accounts except for Roger’s sticky bass pedal, so go straight into 'Step On Me'. The overconfidence trips them, though; it’s not a difficult song but soon Brian and Tim are bickering at length over whether Brian’s solo needs an extra two bars to balance out the verses evenly. Brian, surprisingly, thinks it does, but Tim, stuck in his usual rut of ‘I’m the frontman but don’t play lead’ inadequacy, is stubbornly refusing to allow it, leaving Roger just about ready to gouge his eyes out with his sticks.

“It won’t scan if we leave it so short!”

“Won’t _scan?_ Sorry, Mr May, what are you, a guitarist or fucking Shakespeare?”

“You’re about to tell me song lyrics aren’t poetry?”

“This isn’t about the lyrics, Bri this is about extending your ego-wank stage time. We’ve only got an hour set.”

“Which means we should make it the best we can.”

God, it’s like listening to two teenage boys measuring their dicks. Roger wonders if that’s what he sounds like when he’s stuck on something but Freddie’s voice floats forward in his mind to inform him that, no, he’s much whinier.

The rivalry is making Roger antsy, not to mention the lyrics that he has to hear Tim sing, which cut into him every time. After Brian’s rolled his eyes a total of five times in the space of ten minutes (which Roger knows is verging on dangerous) he eventually makes the decision to come out from his set and into the heart of the conflict. He grabs a piece of paper, draws a shoddy stave and demonstrates where the solo needs extending and feeling both of them on either side of him, Brian’s arm pressed alongside his own makes him realise just how useful it is to be purposefully isolated. After no time he’s safely back behind the kit, but not before informing Brian that solos can’t scan and receiving a betrayed look from Tim at not taking his side.

Roger keeps his eyes to the drums for the rest of the afternoon, because every time he raises them Brian seems to do the exact same simultaneously, and they break apart in an awkward silent moment. He plays and he sings and he shoots Tim a convincing smile every time he looks worriedly at his uncharacteristic quietness, and by dinner time he’s feeling halfway able to manage himself around the two of them, so eating isn’t the nightmare he anticipated. He and Brian even manage to crack a few jokes in a mutual understanding that tense silence would draw just as much attention as over-familiarity, but as soon as they’re back at the venue Brian corners himself off to tune up and Roger knows he’s back to being out of reach.

* * *

 

_Loosen your wrists. Feel the weight of the sticks in your hand. Stop staring at Brian’s legs. Don’t forget to smile._

_DON’T FORGET TO SMILE._

The lights are deliciously blinding for a pub rig, and Roger’s already shoddy eyesight takes a second to adjust. He hears Tim introducing them to a few scattered whoops that Rog can only assume are from some regulars who have seen them before, and one of which he can pick out as a certain Freddie.

“Doesn’t Roger look delicious tonight, ladies?” Tim calls, throwing a wink over his shoulder and Roger fields the responding catcalls with a grin. He knows why Tim likes it, likes knowing that everyone in the room wants Rog but he’s only got eyes for him, and Roger usually loves it too, but he can see the short, sharp look Brian sends his way and the way his throat bobs as he swallows tensely. Tearing his eyes away from the guitarist, he scans as much of the crowd as he can between the cymbals and the lights and Bri and Tim limiting his view.

Up the back, pint in hand, is Freddie, leaning close with a blonde girl who, after a few seconds Roger recognises as Mary, his on-again off-again squeeze dependent on which way he feels like swinging that night. There’s no-one else he particularly recognises in the crowd, but a brunette with bluntly cut hair catches his eye and smiles. He’s still got it.

The show is good. The show is great. The show is the best they’ve done since before Christmas, which is unexpected given Roger’s distracting view of both Brian and Tim’s arses in front of his eyes. But the million mile an hour thoughts that were careering through his head fall, as expected, by the wayside as he plays, so he hardly registers them at all, except as tracks and sounds and beats to keep in order. He doesn’t speed up, doesn’t get impatient like he has been lately, and he doesn’t sing any dud harmonies. Brian’s solo fits much better with the extra two bars, and Rog can even see Tim shoot him a smile after it as if to concede that he was wrong.

They even get an encore, so they crack out 'Strange Brew', an old _Cream_ cover that Roger actually auditioned with, and it’s like falling into a pair of well-worn shoes.

Afterwards, he thinks about how much easier it would be to be able to keep both of them in order the way he does in the music. How he could anticipate Tim’s next move, or count Brian into loving him and actually showing it with four beats alone. It’s more than a little sociopathic, he knows that, but the neatness of the way they fit together onstage ought to be able to translate to life, otherwise what’s the point?

He drags this thought over to the bar, sticking on a pair of sunglasses because the lights seem to have given him the beginnings of a headache. It’s just as he’s about to pull his performer privileges to cut the queue that a voice he doesn’t recognise stops him.

“Can’t expect the band to buy their own drinks, can we?”

The voice comes from a girl, only a touch taller than him thanks to a pair of, Roger has to admit, impressive platforms, but still slightly denting his masculinity even as she slides him a vodka tonic.

“Rebecca.” She says, by way of introduction.

“Rog. How did…” he trails off, mostly in awe of the fact she knew his order offhand.

“I asked your friend what you drink.”

She waves a hand and Roger follows where it gestures to see Brian deep in conversation, but not deep enough that he can’t meet his eyes for a brief, charged second before turning back. Something in him leaps at the fact that Brian’s memorised his favourite drink, despite the rational part of his brain that tells him that after being friends for a year that’s probably just standard. The girl’s got her dark hair cut in some kind of bob that makes Roger realise she’s the one he spotted in the crowd earlier, and he smirks.

“That’s commitment.”

“It’s polite.” She shoots back, “Can’t hold a conversation if all you’re thinking about is how your drink tastes like piss.”

She’s funny, and really rather beautiful, and has something sharp in her smile that makes Roger instinctively want to impress.

“Quite.”

There’s something of Brian in her measured teasing, but the way her dress is stretched over her soft curves is a mile away from his sharp limbs, which he has to admit is oddly refreshing. She offers him an open pack of cigarettes and he tries not to look down her neckline as she leans forward to light it for him but he is, after all, only human. He also knows when a move is calculatedly seductive, because he’s the fucking master of it.

As she blows out a plume of smoke, she speaks.

“You were good, up there. All of you. Your frontman, he’s a bit pitchy, but the songs are great.”

Roger’s not detached enough from his relationship for his defensive boyfriend reflexes to not kick in at this.

“Pitchy?” he scoffs, “It’s rock and roll, babe.”

She arches an eyebrow and smirks around her cigarette.

“Oh, sorry _babe,_ I forgot rock and roll doesn’t have any pitch in the first place.”

He _really_ likes her. He wishes it were this easy with someone else. Someone in particular.

“And you made such a good first impression, Rebecca.”

White teeth flash as she laughs. Roger scans the room for curly hair.

“It’s hard to see how touchy you are when you’re wearing those things inside.” She says, finger coming to tap the rim of his sunglasses and he snaps his gaze back to her, taking a drag of smoke. He knows she’s just flirting, but if she really knew just how touchy he is she’d have an absolute field day.

“Got a persona to cultivate.”

She leans in.

“Ever take them off?”

He grins.

“It’s the last thing I do.”

“I’m guessing this isn’t tying you, then?” she swirls her finger around at the juncture of her neck where he realises Tim’s lovebite is still visible on him, but he’s not sure whether it’s the bared tan of her skin or the hand that comes to settle in the small of his back at that moment that makes his heart rate speed up.

“Roger is tied on down, I’m afraid, love. Sorry if he gave you a wrong impression.”

Tim is already quite drunk, from the way he speaks his words over Roger’s shoulder and brings his hand round to pull him into his side. He sees disappointed confusion flicker in Rebecca’s eyes.

“Oh?” She manages and then, Jesus _Christ_ Tim’s jealous because he’s pressing his nose into the hollow of Roger’s neck and from behind him Rog can feel he’s getting hard in his jeans and it’s at that she realises what’s going on, and raises an eyebrow.

“Oh.” She says again, knowingly, and all Rog can manage in response is an apologetic smile.

God, what a way to ruin the fun.

He doesn’t know if he’d have actually slept with her. A month ago it would have been an easy question to answer and the answer would have been no, because he loves Tim, or feels the closest to it that he feels capable of. Brian is an anomaly, something that makes him lose all reasonable control because of the way he moves and looks, but it’s undeniable that he’s opened a floodgate to making boundaries permeable. If he’s fucking Brian when he should only be fucking Tim, what’s the harm in carrying on? He hasn’t shagged a girl in just under a year, and he would have loved to eat her out, but then he remembers Brian’s charged look, the fact he told her what drink to buy and his drunk, primal brain gets put on pause because he realises it’s a test. Brian wants to know if he’s one in a string of infidelity, or if he means something, and Roger’s alcohol fuelled dick was about to ruin everything.

Rebecca leaves, with a smile that says she doesn’t hold anything against him, and as she makes eyes at the bartender a couple of meters down Roger thinks she’s going to have no trouble pulling tonight. It’s reassuring to know how replaceable he is, at least to some. Tim comes round to face him, keeping a hand on his hip, and from over his shoulder Rog can still see Brian, who steals a look just as Tim leans close to his ear to talk.

“Meet me in the loos.”

Brian holds his gaze as Tim weaves away, heavy and testing and Roger feels his face flush. He stubs out his cigarette and follows.

* * *

 

The men’s bathroom is small and slightly grotty, and as Roger rounds the door he sees Tim pulling at his face in the mirror before spotting him. Then he’s hit with a rush of hot open-mouthed kisses and fingers fumbling straight for Roger’s belt that he has to catch for a pause.

“Wanna blow you.” Tim mutters, and wrests his hands out of Roger’s grip to skim behind and grab handfuls of his arse. Rog flattens his palms against Tim’s chest and looks up at him, huffing out a kind of surprised laugh and keeping him somewhat at a distance.

“Here?” he asks, and Tim nods with a smug grin.

“Yup.” He breathes, and squeezes his hands in a way that makes Roger gasp involuntarily, “Just like old times. You looked so good up there. God, I love you.”

Roger can’t do this. It’s not that he doesn’t want a blowjob because he’s got a bloody semi and he’d love it, but this is Tim trying to be someone that he’s not, all because of yesterday’s fight.

“What happened to—” he begins to ask, but Tim brings a finger up to his lips to shush him and he smiles without realising it.

“I told you, I’m not being a pussy anymore.” Tim insists, and Rog wants to tell him it’s actually perfectly reasonable to moderate your public behaviour 90% of the time, especially when attempting to blow your boyfriend in a pub toilet, and that he’s not a pussy for it. But Tim is kissing him again, and tugging on his lower lip, before pulling back. “I saw that girl flirting with you. Want everyone to know you’re mine.”

Roger thinks about fucking Brian and wants to die.

“You’re drunk.” He manages, like that has ever stopped them shagging before.

Tim gives him a withering look.

“ _You’re_ drunk. And you’re my boyfriend and I’ve been taking that for granted so let me suck you off.”

His hands come back round to the front of Roger’s jeans and start to fumble again with the buttons.

“Don’t want to get messy.” He whines.

“I’ll clean you up.”

In fairness, that was a lame excuse. He fists his hands firmly in Tim’s shirt and looks him dead in the eyes.

“When we get home, you can fuck me till I can’t see straight, how’s that?”

It seems to be enough.

Tim doesn’t reply at first, but his hands fall still on Roger’s fly and then they’re coming to cup his jaw and pull him into a needy, drunken kiss which falls apart into Tim’s forehead on his.

“I love you so much, Roger.”

_Don’t forget to smile._

He smiles.

“You too.”

Roger grabs him by the wrist and drags them both back out into the sweaty heat of the bar.

Three vodka tonics later and Rog isn’t feeling up to the constant barrage of almost-strangers trying to debate musicianship with him, and not even Freddie’s tipsy antics are making him feel better. Brian’s been avoiding him studiously, every time he makes his way over to him the man miraculously disappears, whereas Tim has been inversely completely smothering, all roaming hands and whispering filthy words in his ear. He needs air, or a glass of water, or half a conversation with Brian to make him feel better.

When Tim has ducked outside for a cigarette that Rog convinces him to smoke outside in an attempt to sober him up somewhat, he decides Brian’s going to have to go for a piss sometime, so heads into the toilet to escape the crowd and wait. He continues to reach admirably new lows, he thinks, as he sinks down the walls between the hand dryers.

Sure enough, he only has to wait ten minutes before a certain long-legged guitarist (the one that’s not his boyfriend) makes his way through the door without even seeing him there.

Brian’s hair has sprung back into his curls due to the humid heat of the pub, but they’re still looser than usual and bounce against his forehead as he unzips his fly by the urinal.

“Does it bother you?”

Roger’s got one shoulder bearing all his weight leant against the tiled wall, and he’s looking up at Brian through what is by now a mess of hair. Brian starts at him speaking, but after a moment turns back and continues to piss regardless. It’s an impressive new form of ignoring him.

“What?” he asks, and Rog has to do his best not to peek.

“How handsy he’s being with me.”

Brian scoffs. It’s a sound that makes Roger’s stomach clench.

“He is your boyfriend, Rog.” He points out, and the word makes Roger prickle but he’s playing a different game now and so doesn’t let on, just inspects the ends of his hair faux-nonchalantly. He wants him to be jealous. He wants him to be jealous even if that means a danger of people knowing, because Rog isn’t renowned for his rationality.

“He tried to blow me in the toilets.” He tries, but Brian counters his nonchalance at an equal level.

“Did he now? Congratulations.”

Roger narrows his eyes and ups the ante.

“I wanted it to be you. Your mouth on me.” There’s no response, and Roger snakes a hand inside his shirt, half calculated and half instinctive reaction to how hot he’s making himself. _Look at me. Look at me._

“I can’t stop thinking about how you feel inside me.”

After a long, painfully long moment, Brian tucks himself away and does up his fly.

“Stop it, Rog.”

Roger wishes he would turn around. He wants to see what effect he’s having, if any. He wants to see if Brian is getting hard, but he carries on regardless.

“Every time he puts a hand on me. Do you want to touch me like that?”

There’s no reply.

Instead, Brian goes to wash his hands, and it’s the most Brian thing Rog has ever seen him do, careful and thorough. He watches his thumb rub the skin of his palm, and thinks about his own fingers there, light and loving.

“Not unless you stop lying to him.” Brian says, eventually, and steals a shooting glance over his shoulder at where Roger stands, hand in shirt, eyes bleary and hair tousled. “Even then, not when you’re like this.”

That hurts, because Roger knows he looks like a mess, bruised neck bare and blood thinned with vodka but Tim wants him anyway – Tim likes him sexed up and all over the place, sweaty like an overheated evening in May and out of his mind with want, though only in private. Brian wants him sorted in his own head and feelings, and Roger doesn’t think he’s capable of that.

“I think I’m the life of the party.”

“Exactly.” He turns to face him, and it’s the first time Roger’s had his full attention since he walked in. It’s slightly frightening and indescribably heavy. “Did you wish that girl were me too?” Brian asks, hazel eyes boring holes into him so forcefully that he backs himself up into the wall for support. Roger’s got enough of his wits about him to be defensive.

“You told her my drink. _You_ sent her over.” It’s more childishly accusatory than he would have liked but he gets like that when he’s backed into corners, physical or otherwise and he’s still smarting from Brian’s previous comment. Brian doesn’t rise to it, intent on leaning back on the sink and getting the answer to his question.

“Would you have slept with her?” he asks, and Roger shakes his head too quickly. It makes everything spin and blur.

“No. It’s just fun.” He says simply, trying to ignore that he ever doubted his response to that very question. He loves flirting, fucking _relishes_ it, but it’s no fun if Brian isn’t playing along.

“If it was just Tim, would you have slept with her? If there was nothing between us?”

Roger can’t stop the groan that escapes him.

“I don’t know, Bri my head is a mess. What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out what you feel for me.”

Roger wants to say that he’s doing the exact same thing, that even without the booze his head is still too tangled to figure it out. Brian’s head is frighteningly clear, and Roger knows exactly how he feels.

“You love me.”

The answer is immediate and certain.

“Yes.”

He comes to stand in front of him, tilting up his chin.

“Kiss me.”

It’s a gross manipulation. An abuse of Brian’s feelings that he should feel guilty about except Brian brings a thumb up to trace the corner of his mouth, and Roger forgets how to exhale. There’s a moment of suspension.

The hand drops.

“No.” he says, and everything comes out of Roger in a shuddering breath.

Brian tries to make for the door, but Rog crowds him in. No matter how much he’ll call him a drunken mess, he knows he wants him, from the way his pupils are wide and his cheeks pink. Rog, for some reason, still hasn’t had enough attention tonight, at least from the people he wants, so he’s being stupidly needy.

“Don’t you think I’m pretty like this?” he asks, almost whining, and the look in Brian’s eyes is positively _tortured_ , yearning slipping through the cracks of his pretence.

“I think you’re beautiful.”

The honesty makes Roger’s eyes burn.

“Kiss me, then.”

Brian is dangerously still.

He hadn’t expected a victory. He’d expected a cold refusal, the stoic rebuttal that he’s had fifty times in the way Brian has been studiously ignoring him all night. But it doesn’t come. He gets what he wants. Brian leans in with chaste lips and kisses him so briefly and painfully it still feels like he’s lost.

“I think you’re beautiful and desperate.” Brian says, close to his ear, “And it doesn’t look good on you. Grow up.”

He makes for the door.

Roger can’t speak. There’s a cold lump in his throat, but his cheeks are hot, and he has to blink away furious tears to be able to turn before Brian’s gone and blurt out the only thing he thinks will make him stay.

“I left the note.”

Brian stops.

“What?” he asks.

“At Tim’s.”

He turns.

“You left the note at Tim’s?”

Roger’s whole face is burning.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Not deliberately. Accident. Do you think he knows?”

Brian lets out the heaviest sigh Roger thinks he’s ever heard, and looks like he’s at a complete loss.

He leaves.

* * *

 

Roger makes good on his promises. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes he has to prioritise them, but he makes good. Tim is priority. For the moment.

Roger can feel the breath being fucked out of him in short pants into his pillow, one of Tim’s hands gripping his hip and the other pulling hard at his hair as he moves inside him in fast, sharp thrusts. He’s still sore from Brian, but the burn doesn’t bother him because it’s what he knows he needs, the pain and reminder of his mistakes, which he drinks from the tugging at his scalp and the teeth on his neck. For the hundredth time he thinks about how much he loves Tim being rough with him, except this time he knows it’s because he deserves to be hurt. The world is spinning quite significantly, still, so Roger buries his face in the pillow so he doesn’t get seasick because he is fucking wasted, and Tim bears down on him, until his chest is flush with Roger’s back and the intimacy of the position makes him gasp into the fabric.

“Mine.”

He feels the word being spoken into his heated skin more than he hears it and screws his eyes shut at the way they suddenly burn. Tim mouths at his spine as he moves inside him, hand clutching bruises into his hip.

“Say it.” He huffs, but Roger can’t bring himself to, can’t make himself lie anymore than he has tonight, so he says:

“Fuck me, Tim.”

Which seems to satisfy him for the time being.

And now Roger’s thinking about Brian, damnit, thinking about gentler hands and the way his curls stick to Roger’s damp skin. Thinking about how if Brian were fucking him he’d be able to be on his back looking at him rather than hiding in the fabric of the pillow, thinking about how his movements are just a touch slower, and a hell of a lot more luxurious. Thinking about shagging him on this bed, on these sheets. Thinking about how he thinks he’s desperate and how that makes him want him all the more.

“Oh, God, Rog—”

Tim’s thrusts are getting faster and shallower now, and Roger’s glad he’s got a mouth full of pillow because he’s dangerously close to moaning out Brian’s name in the messy state he’s in. Suddenly he wants it to be over, wants it to be finished and the movement and Brian in his head are making him a little nauseous, so he tugs himself off quickly, hand tight around his cock and groaning out words that he hopes aren’t incriminating before he spills, all over his sheets.

Tim follows not long behind, moaning into his skin, but instead of pulling out like Roger expects, he thrusts deeper, coming inside of him with a punched-out groan.

It’s not like they haven’t done it before, and it’s not like it’s something Roger doesn’t enjoy sometimes, but tonight the possessive overtone of the whole evening has made him uneasy and that has kind of been the nail in the coffin.

He can’t bring himself to move for a good few minutes, just turns to press his cheek into the pillow and stop his brain swirling around in his skull.

After a while, he can feel Tim’s hands rubbing circles into his sore back muscles, and is glad to be facing away as a few tears roll their way onto the linen. He hears him head to the bathroom, rolls over slightly to let him clean him up and ends up lying on his back, duvet up to his chin, Tim beside him.

“We’re good, aren’t we?”

Tim’s voice is a too-loud drunk whisper in Roger’s blue and silent room.

“Of course we are.” Roger lies, and wonders if he’ll ever be able to stop.

“I mean the three of us.” Tim clarifies, and Roger can feel his eyes on him. “You and me of course we’re good, we’re – I love you, but the band. We were good tonight, weren’t we?”

Roger’s throat has closed up slightly at the words, at the assumption, but he manages to force out speech.

“We were.”

Tim nods to himself.

“Smile works.”

“Go to sleep, bellend.” Roger jokes, but he can’t hide the bite behind it.

“I’m being serious.” There’s a shift in the mattress, and Roger knows he’s facing him. “It works, doesn’t it?”

“’F’course.”

This fixation feels like something that’s been simmering for a while, without ever being spoken. Roger wonders how many just-below-average gigs it’s taken to make this one mean so much to him, but at this moment can’t bring himself to be the reassurance he seems to be looking for. After a long silence, Tim turns back to the ceiling.

“Sometimes I feel like we’re not going anywhere.”

“Hm.”

“Smile, that is.”

All Roger’s ever wanted to do is play. He only came here to find a group in need of a drummer, the course was just the vehicle. Find a band that needs a rhythm. Find two men and love them til they’re broken. He doesn’t know what he’d do without a band. What would be the point?

Things come in spades, don’t they? Breakdowns of love, of friendship, of alliances. Things fall apart.

Roger rolls under Tim’s arm, and holds him like he’s afraid he’ll shatter.

_Don’t forget to smile._

Roger doesn’t think he can.


	5. sunday 8th - friday 13th february, 1970

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO UPDATES IN TWO DAYS who am i
> 
> a lil interlude/timeskip - more angst and freddie and cats
> 
> cw for some implied self harm ??
> 
> enjoyxx

_Sunday 8 th February_

A hungover Roger walks Tim home in the noon drizzle, aching and tired, and finally manages to get his jacket back. The pockets are empty, and the bottom drops out of his stomach. The note could have fallen out, in the wardrobe, or down the side of the mattress, or out of the window, but the hypotheticals grow increasingly far-fetched and Roger’s resignation hits him with the full force of the train he’s riding.

Freddie’s trinket bowl doesn’t survive the following tantrum. Roger’s amazed he does, albeit with bloody knuckles and dented walls. Freddie shouts and Roger throws back awful, vicious words and they spend the afternoon in stormy silence. He calls Brian. Nothing.

* * *

 

_Monday 9 th February_

He buys Freddie a new bowl. Calls Brian again, in slightly less panicked tears than the day before but still with no response. He blows off uni all day to hide behind the market stall, until Freddie finds him and drags him home for take-out forgiveness and a cuddle.

* * *

 

_Tuesday 10 th February_

He considers not going to lunch with Tim in a fit of cowardice, but knows how guilty he’ll look so bites the bullet. He doesn’t think Tim will show, certain that he’ll be punished with being made to feel abandoned, but he does. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong, and Roger is amazed in a tense, fragile way that makes him over-analyse every moment. They book dinner for Saturday. Roger doesn’t know if he’s imagining the steel behind Tim’s eyes, the way he’s back to avoiding his touches, or whether that’s just him back to being aggressively sober. He talks about Smile’s range, about branching out into other genres, but Roger can’t bring himself to engage, instead picking at his jeans under the table.

They go back to Tim’s, make out, lazily on his bed, but he seems more interested in the answerphone message from some Australian guy, and Roger sincerely hopes he’s having an affair too to take some of the heat off.

He jumps at the chance to leave.

* * *

 

_Wednesday 11 th February_

Freddie informs him that they’re unofficially adopting the cat from next door. He’s glued back together the smashed-up bowl and sends Roger out in a sulk to buy some cat food to put in it. He’s named her Delilah.

He asks for the thousandth time, stretched out on the sofa, her on his chest, when he’s going to get his shit together, and Roger just tears at the skin of his lip. After Saturday, he tells him. One last date, one last shag. Freddie raises eyebrows and scratches his nails into the thick fur of Delilah’s neck. He doesn’t respond.

* * *

 

_Thursday 12 th February_

Retail therapy. Fuck his lectures, fuck his labs, biology is as much a write off as dentistry was so he skives and heads for Carnaby Street, ignoring Freddie’s stern voice in his head. What does he know about actual studying? He takes design for fuck’s sakes. 

He finds a new shirt for Saturday, one that he knows Tim will either love from the way it hangs open, or hate because he should hate everything about him. He switches the tags and gets it for half the price, but there’s no guilt left in him to be bothered about it. It’s all being funnelled somewhere else.

Hallmark is decked out in origami hearts, and Roger nearly balks as he walks by. A few metres down the street he stops. Turns.

With a clenched jaw, he goes inside. He buys two cards.

* * *

 

_Friday 13 th February_

Roger hates Valentine’s Day. Starting now, he’s decided there’s nothing he hates more.

He used to like the bars full of sad singles just waiting for a few choice words to whisk them into his bed, but those days are gone. All he wants is one last night. One last dinner, tell Tim first thing tomorrow morning and run for the Tube, let the underbelly of London whisk him out of sight of his problems.

The cards sit on his dresser, taunting him. The bruises from Saturday linger on his hipbone, and he presses into them with shaky fingers.

He tries the shirt on again. He hates that too, now, in the light of a new day. He looks like a preening fucking slut so he rips it off and hears the sleeve tear as he throws it onto his bed. He storms through to Freddie and buries gulping breaths in the cut of his collarbone. Delilah winds about their feet.

Freddie picks at the tangles in his hair until he’s calmed down, then asks if he really wants to put the inevitable off any longer. Roger thinks about the reservation, the card, the shirt (which is now kind of a non-factor, but still) and says he hasn’t really got a choice.

“You always have a choice.”

It’s sincere to his core, but Roger shakes his head.

“After tomorrow.” He says, more to himself than Freddie, and painted nails brush the hair out of his eyes.

He sleeps in Freddie’s bed that night. They haven’t done that for ages, because they haven’t needed each other like that, what with Tim and Mary, but Freddie offers, softly, into his ear, and Roger nods. So, they end up wound up in each other, legs and hands, Delilah settling herself somewhere in the middle.

He’ll get through tomorrow. What else can he do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we almost there. valentine's day. shit finna go down


	6. saturday 14th february, 1970: i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER IS GIVING ME SO MUCH GRIEF and i haven't updated in so long bc term has hit Hard with rehearsals and castings and seminars so i thought i'd give u that sweet content u so crave and post it in two parts (maybe part two on v-day for that poetic neatness)
> 
> your comments make me smile so stupidly thank u love u all enjoy
> 
> it's not gonna be angsty for very much longer i promise!!!!!!!!  
> xoxo

_Saturday 14 th February_

9:47am

Roger wakes to a strand of black hair dusting over his cheek – midnight black, he should say, as it belongs to a certain Freddie Mercury. Their noses are nearly touching, and the other man’s got an arm thrown over his chest, and Roger has to lie there for a good minute and just feel the steady rise and fall of his chest. Through the sheer curtains, the sunlight filters through, dim and cold but illuminating everything. He’s missed this.

Waking up next to Freddie is different than waking up next to anyone else. With Tim, there’s always a charged possibility in the air, even now, and he hasn’t ever woken up next to Brian without the other man already being awake, watching him casually as he watches Freddie now. The picture is calm, and asks nothing of him he doesn’t want to give, and really doesn’t help his case with various lovers who doubted the platonic nature of their friendship, but Roger, right now, really doesn’t give a fuck.

He needs intimacy that doesn’t hold any promises or grudges, despite the fact that Freddie holds both, frequently and well.

As if by some psychic recognition that he’s being thought about, Freddie’s fingers twitch awake on Roger’s chest and he lifts his head blearily.

“Morning.” Roger tries to say, but his voice is actually too hoarse to be heard, so he clears his throat and tries again.

“Morning.”

“Good morning,” Freddie replies, low and lovely, and pulls a strand of Roger’s hair from out of the corner of his mouth. Payback.

He pushes himself upright, and Roger lies back on the pillow, silently envious of how quickly Freddie’s body and brain kick themselves into gear as soon as he wakes up – it takes Roger a good half an hour to regain the conscious world, even if he’s slept in until the early afternoon, but Freddie can very often be up and at ‘em at 7am, provided he’s not nursing a hangover.

Roger watches the way he grabs his elbow, pulls it behind his head to stretch and feels his own muscles protest by proxy. A disgruntled Delilah meows weakly to protest the movement, then hops off the bed to strut away. Freddie watches her go, before turning with a look on his face like he’s just remembered what day it is.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, darling,” he says, looking down at him, with something just less that smugness. Roger grabs the pillow not currently under his head and smothers himself with it.

“Oh, would you stop that.” He feels the mattress shift suddenly, and then two legs bracketing his own, and when a strong hand snatches the pillow off to leave him blinking in the sunlight he’s got a by now very awake Freddie Mercury straddling him. He takes a deep breath, as if preparing for something, then speaks.

“I know today is going to be incredibly difficult for you, dear, and I know you know who you have to blame for that, so I’m not going to remind you. I believe wholeheartedly that you will do what you feel is right for you and the people you love, if not only because I am a helpless optimist and will never learn from every other travesty you make out of your personal life. I love you, my dearest Roger, and to add another to your larger than normal pile, I am your Valentine, if you want me. If you don’t, too fucking bad, because I have to clean up all your messes and that takes more love than a screw in a pub bathroom does.”

It’s obviously rehearsed, and Roger can do little other than lie there in slightly dazed amazement at it as Freddie reaches for the card on the bedside table, addressed only with a heart. He’d assumed last night that it was for Mary, but Freddie presses it with both hands onto the faded logo on Roger’s chest.

“I’ve another bigger one for Mary, don’t you worry. I’m going to do something now, not because I have any remote desire to shag you, but because that speech was shockingly insufficient to express my feelings.”

And before Roger has any time to let his brain whirl through any of the hundred ideas his brain has conjured, Freddie’s leaning down and pressing soft lips against his own.

The kiss is warm and comforting, closed mouthed and tender to the point where Roger feels a touch light headed as Freddie pulls away.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.” He says again, and Roger is at a loss.

He feels like he might cry. The tears well, blossoming from somewhere impossibly warm in the pit of his stomach but he blinks them away, and Freddie doesn’t say anything about it, just watches him gently.

“Love you, Freddie.” He manages eventually, barely audible, and the man above him cracks a grin.

Then, with a playful jab to the softness of Roger’s stomach that leaves him winded, he pushes off the bed and snags his robe from the back of the door, tying it tightly around him and fixing a still-prone Roger with a stare.

“You’ve got plans to see through, loverboy. And I’ve got a picnic. Come have breakfast.”

Breakfast attempts to be heart-shaped choc-chip pancakes, but dissolves into batter in hair and Delilah with her face in the bowl, and their electric hob is too difficult to gauge the temperature of without burning everything so they end up eating the mixture raw.

Roger perches on the kitchen table, bowl in the crook of his arm as Freddie hangs his potential outfits on the doorframe and parades them, one by one, to a backing of The Supremes wafting through from the living room turntable, and he’s pushing everything else out of his head with every spoonful because this is what’s easiest and best for now. They decide on an embroidered gold top and some plainer black flares, and Roger watches as he teases his hair into place and adds a touch of eyeliner.

He’s still not entirely sure what exactly he and Mary are to each other but something about the way they let each other just _be_ makes Roger ache. He wishes he didn’t have to put on so much of himself, layer after lie, and is maybe more than a little jealous that the only person he can strip away around has someone else to feel comfortable with. A brief image fills his mind of crashing their picnic, stuck between them, and he pushes it away. It’ll be freezing, anyway. There’s also something painful in the way Freddie’s parents love her, a way they never could for any guy Roger brought home (as if he ever would).

Freddie gifts him the close second outfit option for his date, having seen that the new blouse is ripped beyond repair, and Roger tails behind him to the shop, trailing the cart like a sullen child as Freddie picks item after item of Mary’s favourite food: imported strawberries from somewhere that’s not dull and cold, wine and cheese.

At the checkout, he loiters long enough to buy a bunch of roses without Freddie noticing, rips off the price sticker, and presents them to him with a flourish when they get back to the flat in half arsed reciprocation for the card and the kiss. He gets a laugh, and another kiss (on the cheek this time), and he doesn’t say that he wants Freddie to stay all day until dinner, so that he doesn’t have to be alone with his thoughts.

He doesn’t mention that at all, because he’s not a baby, and Freddie has got a date, but he asks if he wants another cup of tea before he leaves, or if he wants to set some washing off, until eventually, coat on and bag in hand, Freddie cups his chin with a hand and looks into his eyes.

“You’ll be fine.” He says, and Roger sighs.

“Okay.”

“I love you.”

And he’s gone.

 

1:24pm

This is the last date they’re ever going to have.

This is the last time he’s ever going to look at Tim across a table and have him look back with something other than disgust in his eyes. This is the last time he’s ever going to have sex with him, probably, or he hopes so at least, because if the last time is that rough drunken mess last week it’ll make the sour taste of their parting turn positively acrid.

This is hopefully the last time he’s going to dial Brian’s number and feel the guilt weighing on his finger, making every digit heavy and difficult.

He doesn’t expect him to pick up, given his record, so it’s in a state of flustered shock that he stammers out a greeting after the eighth ring cuts.

“Hey, Brian?”

White line static, and then.

“Hi, Rog.”

Suddenly he realises he’s got nothing planned to say, so he flounders.

“I…”

“Has he found it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want to— I wanted to say—Happy Valentine’s Day.”

_Smooth._

“Roger…”

“I got you a card. Can I bring it round?”

“Not if it’s just a swing-by before the date you’re actually not ashamed to go on.”

Roger thinks about the argument with Tim, about shame and filthy words that make his face flare and he almost wants to laugh bitterly at the irony but he bites it back.

“Okay.” he surrenders.

More silence, then what sounds like a sigh, and an equally defeated:

“Sorry.”

Roger’s throat closes a little.

“It’s a really nice card.”

_Pathetic._

“Is it handmade?”

_What?_

“What?”

“Is the card handmade?”

_Oh._

“No. It’s from Hallmark.”

“I see.”

The conversation is like a stilted waterfall, frozen into chunks and shards, and something inside Roger decides to smash it open.

“I’m having the worst time of my life probably, right now, if I’m being honest. And I know I don’t deserve you until I’ve stopped being a cheating prick and I know you’ve got every right to ignore me and treat me like shit but I’m going to tell him tomorrow because I can’t stand you not wanting to look at me or even answer my phone calls, because every time you do it it feels like you’re punching a hole straight through me and I don’t know if that means I just miss you or I love you or I need you or what but it really hurts.”

There’s a good minute of dead air, and Roger squeezes the moisture out of his eyes because _Christ_ , it’s like a fucking dam has been broken this past week and he feels helpless to stop the tears from coming and furious when they do.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Rog.” Brian says, quietly, and Roger’s knuckles are clenched white around the receiver, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

_Click._

He’s got no way in everloving holy fucking hell that he can get out of it now.

 

3:02pm

He’s on just over one hour of trying to read The Subterraneans, stretched taut with nervous energy across the sofa, but Delilah keeps kneading him with her needle claws and his eyes are twitchy and strained worse than usual, so he tents the book over his face and lets her pummel at him as he drifts off to sleep.

 

4:33pm

Awake and groggy, he goes out for a walk and chainsmokes half a pack of cigarettes. On the way back, he buys the strongest gum he can find.

 

5:40pm

He showers. He changes. Freddie has good taste, he thinks as he looks in the mirror, like he’s surprised. He looks good. He kind of wishes he didn’t.

 

6:26pm

Roger lets the flat door shut sharply behind him.


	7. saturday 14th february, 1970: ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello
> 
> remember when i said i might post this on v day??? LOL
> 
> have been majorly busy - shows and uni and family bereavement - thank you for being so understanding. this is the final chapter, but there will be a lil epilogue too
> 
> big love xoxox

_6:49pm_

The restaurant is a little Italian place in SoHo, set back from the road and run by an exuberant Italian man, Gio, and his partner David. It’s one of the few places Roger and Tim know they can go together without having to be aggressively platonic, but is usually still full of a fair few regular heterosexual punters alongside those looking for an accepting date-night spot, so it’s not perfect, but it’s the best they can get. Tonight, there are red tissue paper hearts stuck all over everything, fluttering close to tall candles in wine bottles, single red roses in long vases and the rest of the romantic paraphernalia that makes Roger want to cut and run.

He’s stupidly early, borne out of paranoia and nerves so he takes the table in the corner for the two of them, and waits.

 

_7:05pm_

Tim is not a person who is late. He isn’t, because if Tim were late and Roger were too (which he normally is, ninety percent of the time) they’d be a collective shitshow. They’re a collective shitshow for other things, admittedly, but not punctuality. Except tonight.

But five minutes isn’t too late, not too late at all.

 

_7:18pm_

Okay, maybe Tim is late.

Maybe it’s a complex and ridiculous payback for every time Roger’s bailed or turned up half an hour behind schedule, or maybe it’s an honest mistake, but he can still feel the nervous bouncing of his leg shaking the silverware on the table.

When he sees Tim stroll through the door, his heart does a weird thing of trying to leap and sink at the same time.

He doesn’t look like he’s trying to rush, like a man twenty minutes late should be, but he does look fucking good, dark hair tucked behind his ears, button-down under his suit jacket with the top two buttons undone and eyes glinting as he spots Roger at the table and gives him a little wave.

“You’re late.” Roger says, half-serious, and Tim pulls an apologetic face as he makes his way over.

“Sorry.” He presses a kiss to his cheek, before pulling back, “Hi.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“And the same to you.”

They stand in almost awkwardness for a second, before Tim moves to sit and Roger follows, fingers drumming on the tabletop. He feels something stabbing into his chest, so reaches into his jacket, to feel that he’s got the two enveloped cards in there that Freddie must have slipped in at some point earlier. And he doesn’t know which is which. After a panicked moment of analysing the feel of the envelope paper and praying to the sweet Lord to catch a break, he manages to pull out the right one.

 “This is for you.”

Tim’s eyebrows lift as the envelope is held out to him, and Roger can’t quite get over the hint of surprise.

 “Oh, thank you.”

He takes it, slides a thumb under and tears the card free, corners of his lips quirking up as he reads the front. It’s a stupid, soppy, obviously ironic choice, like something Roger’s grandmother would buy, with kittens and flowers on the front. He puts it underneath his chair.

“I’ve got something for you, but I’ll give it to you later.” He says, and the little smile on his face doesn’t quite touch his eyes.

Roger orders something other than a pizza (even though that’s all he wants to eat) because he’s being classy and civilised and ends up with a kind of prawn linguini that he surprisingly enjoys. The low light makes Tim’s eyes shine warm the same way Brian’s smile does his, and it’s _nice_ , but the dead, cold weight in the pit of his stomach makes his paranoia flare every time he laughs a little less than anticipated, or smiles a little smaller.

They rattle through a bottle of wine between them, and exhaust most topics of conversation – Tim seems to skirt around band talk, eyes shifting, and Roger’s mind whirls a mile a minute about why that could be. He asks about Roger’s course, then listens to what little jargon Roger manages to remember from the last lecture he went to two weeks ago like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever heard. It’s not tense, but it’s definitely weird and off, and Roger’s outstretched hinting hand on the tabletop never gets held.

With desserts fresh on the tabletop and waiter winding out of reach back to the kitchen, Tim looks into his lap for a minute before leaning forward decidedly. He inhales in an ominously nervous way that makes warning signs go off in Roger’s head, but his expression is impossible to read.

“I need to tell you something.” He says, and then, “I need to tell Brian, too, but I wanted you to be first.”

Roger’s throat closes up and he feels himself stop breathing. He knows. He definitely knows, and Roger’s eyesight is narrowing down to black but he still manages to reply, even if it does now feel like his heart is trying to leap up his closed oesophagus.

“Okay?”

Tim does another of those inhales, and if Rog didn’t know any better, he’d say he was milking it.

“I’m leaving Smile.”

_Wait._

_What?_

_Oh._

_Thank fuck that’s all._

Roger’s lungs empty in a quick hard rush of air; the initial, immediate reaction is one of relief, and trying to stop himself from smiling because he still has to be annoyed and surprised beyond the incredible sense of a weight off.

“Oh.” He manages, trying to keep the relief out of his voice, but he only realises through acting it that he is actually maybe a little annoyed, to be honest.

“I’ve been talking to Colin Peterson and he’s got a group, and they need a singer.” Okay, actually, scratch that, he’s not annoyed – he’s fucking angry, and Tim must notice the way his mouth starts to bunch into a small, hard line because he passes a hand through his hair and leans forward, almost patronisingly, “Smile isn’t going anywhere, Rog—”

The dots match up in Roger’s head: from the answerphone message, to their conversation a week ago. His blood rushes.

“Colin Peterson?” he asks, “As in, from disco’s finest Bee Gees? I thought you wanted to make actual music?”

Tim rolls his eyes.

“It’s not going to be a disco group.”

“What is it going to be, then?” Roger shoots back, and he can’t stop the words spitting past his teeth.

“I don’t know, yet, Rog, that’s the fun of it. Not being stuck in some rut playing the same ten songs over and over. Variety, excitement – I thought you’d be all over that.”

Something flashes over his face at that, but he looks down quickly and stabs at his food. Roger couldn’t miss it, even if he tried, he’s so wired up on analysing his every move, so he asks.

“Why me?”

But Tim looks up and ploughs ahead, ignoring him.

“Look, you and Brian will survive perfectly well without me, and maybe in ten years we’ll do a reunion tour together – Smile and Humpy Bong headlining.”

Roger nearly chokes on his drink.

“Sorry – Humpy Bong?”

Tim tilts his head, implacable and unreadable.

“It’s some Australian school Colin went to.”

“Well, it sounds like a porn movie.”

“Shut up.”

It’s half shock and half anger that makes Roger’s hands clammy and shaky and bite out his words.

“You’re going to sound like pillocks.”

Tim holds his eyes for a long minute.

“Bitterness doesn’t suit you.”

A long moment thrums between them, taut and silent, and Roger knows he’s got no right to be pissed at Tim finding something new but he is and it’s making him want to scream. What the fuck are he and Brian supposed to do with just the two of them – _musically,_ that is, because that question is tangled and complicated beyond resolving. They’re good, the three of them, they are. Sure, they’re not groundbreaking, but they sell out and they make good music. They’re on records, for fuck’s sakes, it’s not like they’re a small town skiffle band going nowhere. Though he supposes they are now.

It’s Tim that breaks the tension.

He reaches into his jacket pocket and deposits something down on the table, and after he’s peered around the vase and the candle and the wine glasses Roger can see the slanted cursive of Brian’s handwriting and the bottom drops out of his brain.

It’s the note.

Tim isn’t holding anything back tonight apparently, it’s gonna be one thing after another, but Roger’s got no time to go into shock, though, because he needs to focus everything on coming up with some, any reason behind the note’s existence.

 “Oh.”

_Great start, really fucking good start._

“I was having a bad evening a couple of weeks ago, feeling really low and Bri came round and we just had a chat… about uni and stuff and he said if I needed to talk he’d be there.”

It ends up being easy, too easy, and he hates himself, so tries to draw the conversation back to a course that’s safe, “Can we go back to the part where you’re joining a band with the word ‘hump’ in it?”

Tim is not so easily drawn off track, and Roger’s last question goes unanswered.

 “Why didn’t you call me?”

“You were busy, final year, more important things.”

It’s not a lie, he has got more important things to be worrying about than Roger’s emotional ineptitude. He tries one last time at diversion. “Are you gonna be playing bass in this, or just vocals?”

No such luck.

“I didn’t think anything of it at first.” Tim says, and his tone is hard, forced casual that actually makes Roger a little scared, “I found it in your pocket. You left your jacket the day after you stood me up at dinner.”

“Yeah.”

“Did he come over before or after you went out for drinks with your coursemates?”

_Fuck._

He scrambles for something.

“He—it was the other week.”

 “You kept it in your pocket the whole time?”

“I liked knowing there was someone there if I needed to talk.”

“I was there. Why is there a kiss?”

Jesus, it’s like he’s made a list of holes in Roger’s lies that he’s reeling off one by one, and Roger wants to kick himself for being stupid enough to underestimate him this past month, but all he’s focused on now is withstanding this interrogation and not showing how fast his pulse is racing.

“Not everyone’s so anal about showing affection in public as you, Tim.”

It comes out from a place of spite and is a major fucking misstep because Tim’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline.

“Affection?”

“Platonic. Friendship.” _Bad save, very bad save._ “Why are you showing me this now?”

“I guess I thought I’d given you enough time”

“Enough time for what?”

“To tell me. If there was anything you needed to tell me.”

“Why would I need to tell you that Brian and I had a chat?”

“Why would you keep it a secret?”

Roger’s frustration bubbles over.

“It’s not a secret—Fuck, Tim this isn’t a conspiracy, don’t be so fucking paranoid.”

As does Tim’s:

“Don’t you dare turn this around on me!”

Up until now they’ve been forceful but hushed, but this bursts out in a half-shout.

“Would you calm down, people are—"

But Tim doesn’t tone it down, and Roger is crimson now because he can see the flickering side glances from the tables around them.

“Sorry, I thought you wanted us to be public?” Tim continues, measured on just the wrong side of too-loud, “Let the world know and get me arrested for corrupting a minor, though I suppose that’s Brian’s problem now, isn’t it? Is this public enough for you, Roger?”

“Fucking hell, Tim.”

It comes out as a little shocked laugh, and Tim thankfully decides to tone down the theatrics in favour of simplicity.

“How long?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about-- ”

“God, do you really think I’m that fucking clueless?” The hardness of his interruption shocks Roger’s ability to speak out of him. “Do you think I’m stupid, Rog? And that’s a genuine question: _Do you think I’m stupid?_ ”

Roger finds a shred of his lost voice to reply.

“No.”

“You’ve done a very fucking good job of acting like it. I mean, fucking hell, Rog, you get _around_ don’t you? First Freddie, then me, now Brian, and I really wouldn’t care, honestly, I _couldn’t give a shit_ if you could just keep your dick in your trousers until you’ve moved from one to the next, but that’s a bit too complicated for you to understand, isn’t it?”

Roger can’t quite deal with the way the words cut into him, deep. It’s nothing he hasn’t already told himself over the past month, but hearing the way Tim spits them... 

“Tim.”

“How long have you been fucking him?”

This is the perfect time. This is the perfect opportunity to tell him, to come clean so that Brian will kiss him again and Freddie will stop looking at him with that fucking pity in his eyes but it’s still so difficult to say, because he hasn’t made the choice to say it. He’s being backed into a corner like a coward, only pulling the truth out of himself after Tim has ripped him open and there’s nothing honorable about it, absolutely nothing at all. But he might as well come clean.

He swallows on a papery mouth.

“A month.”

He sees fifty things flick across Tim’s face, but the most heartbreaking is this look of dashed hope, because despite the fire of the accusations Roger knows he was holding out for being wrong, and now he can’t even have that.

“Jesus, Rog.” He says in a soft, cracked voice.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“What?”

Tim looks at him, hard.

“Saying you’re sorry. Don’t lie.”

“I really am sorry. And I really do care about you.”

“You don’t. You’re like a child, that can’t decide what they want so they take it all. You’re a fucking bored child, you always have been – you’ve never cared about standing me up, about being stupid and irresponsible, but for some reason I’ve always just ignored it, and do you know why?”

“No.” Roger manages, and it’s the truth. He’s got no idea.

“Because I _love you._ That’s the fucking kicker, is that I still am in fucking love with you and I know you better than Brian ever can, because I know what a childish, selfish, first-rate town-bike _cunt_ you are.”

It’s spoken with slow preciseness across the table but feels like the knife already in Roger’s gut has just been twisted violently. His nails clench hard into his palms and he has to bow his head so Tim can’t see the way hot, insistent tears are welling in his eyes.

He sees anyway.

“Don’t tell me that you care about me—” he starts.

“But I do—”

“I don’t care! Because I know you can reel me back in so fucking quickly and I won’t have an inch of dignity left.”

And now they’re both sat there with wet eyes, half the restaurant pretending not to be able to hear them, Tim looking so utterly deflated that Roger’s whole chest aches because that’s his fault, he’s got the power to make Tim look like that. He wants to try something, anything to make him feel better, so he does.

“I don’t want to.”

And he fails.

“What?”

 “Reel you back in.”

That’s when Tim’s eyes turn blank and cold, and Roger realises the reality of what he’s said, because he wants to say he won’t manipulate Tim like he expects, but it actually comes out as he just doesn’t want him anymore, and Roger’s not as surprised as he should be to realise that’s actually what he’s wanted to say all along.

“Right.”

There’s a beat where it hangs in the air, and then Tim’s pushing back his chair and slipping through Roger’s fingers at a hurtling, heartbreaking speed.

“I’m sorry, I—” he tries, but is stopped.

“Bye, Roger. Don’t call me.”

“Tim.”

He slings his jacket over his arm, and turns to him with a look that says nothing at all.

“Tell Brian to watch out. I hear his boyfriend’s got a thing for getting his dick wet where he’s not supposed to.”

And he leaves, leaving Roger with the bill, and a fucking gaping hole in his insides.

* * *

 

_9:46pm_

When Roger forces his tired legs up the road to Brian’s building the last of the tears are drying on his cheeks. He’s managed to walk the whole way, despite the cold and his feet aching and he feels oddly empty. It’s a nice feeling, nicer than the white-hot humiliated rage at least, but it seeps into every corner of himself and makes him shiver.

He gathers up a handful of gravel and throws the shards, one by one, at the moonlit sheen of Brian’s window. There’s a sliver of light between the curtains, so Roger knows he’s not asleep and sure enough, six pebbles later, the window pulls up and there’s a mop of dark hair sticking out of the gap, swinging this way and that to catch the perpetrator.

He zeroes in on Roger pretty quickly, who’s glad he’s far away enough that he can’t see the dried tear tracks on his cheeks, or where he’s been scratching white chalky lines into his arms as he’s been walking. Roger calls up, a faux-cool greeting that falls at the first hurdle of his voice being cracked and wavery.

“Don’t you have plans tonight, Bri?”

Roger’s screwy eyes can’t pick out the expression on his face, but he’s almost certain it’s a kind of resigned annoyance so he’s surprised when he isn’t told to fuck off immediately.

“My hot date was unavoidably detained.”

Roger’s mouth twists into half a smile, and he plays along.

“Hot, is he?”

“Unbelievably. I’m pathetically hung up.”

He knows they’re only playing at something or other, but Roger’s worn-out heart makes an attempt to swell at the sentiment.

“He might be free right now, you never know.” He hints, but the hair-shaped thing moves like a head’s being shaken.

“Don’t think so.” Brian calls down, “He’s got a boyfriend, anyway.”

Roger’s eyes threaten to spill over.

“Not anymore.”

It’s too quiet, he realises that as soon as it’s left his mouth.

“What?” floats down.

“He doesn’t – I don’t—Fuck, the pronoun game is confusing. Tim, me, it’s over.”

Silence from the figure, and Roger wishes he could see his face. Then:

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Can I come up?”

 

Roger feels just about ready to collapse at the sight of Brian holding open the door. His hair’s a mess, pyjama bottoms on and that low-cut purple top that Freddie says makes him look like a new-age lesbian mum. Roger’s overworked brain picks out the redness of his lower lip, the grooves in his calloused fingertips that mean he’s been playing, lip pulled into his mouth and fingers skating over steel just the way Roger knows.

He lets him in, but speaks before Roger has time to really go anywhere, and he vaguely wonders how many significant conversations he’s going to have to have in corridors before the universe is through with him.

“You actually told him?”

Ah. Brian thinks he’s actually done something brave. Better set the record straight.

“I—No. I couldn’t. He found the note. He found it on Sunday.”

“And he…”

“Saved it for the V-Day meal, yeah. Greatest potential for harm, I guess.”

There’s a look of genuine shock on Brian’s face, and Roger hadn’t really given much thought to how sadistically drawn out the whole thing was until he sees it in Brian’s eyes. Tim really wanted to make him bleed.

“Shit.”

“He—uh, ha, he called me a ‘first-rate-town-bike cunt’.”

Repeating the words still makes the back of his throat close up, and he now sees Brian’s eyes flash properly angry which makes him feel marginally better. He’s still stood in the corridor, though, and the distance between them is fraught, but Roger can’t quite put his finger on why.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not the one who said it.”

“I’m sorry for the other stuff. For ignoring you.”

“I needed that.”

Brian raises his eyebrows at the martyr card.

“I said you were desperate.” He reminds him, but all Roger can do is shrug.

“I was.”

“I shagged my best mate’s boyfriend.”

_Jesus, he really wants the blame for this._

“I was pushy.” Roger reminds him right back, “And he’s not even your best mate.”

“Not any more.”

They share a dry, dark laugh. Roger rakes a hand through his hair.

“It was me.” he tries, for the last time, and Brian brushes a hand against his own.

“It was both of us, can we say? Equally shit decision makers.”

Roger surrenders to the compromise. He lets out a sigh.

“What a pair.”

“Are we?” Brian asks, quizzically.

“What?”

“Are we a pair? Is that what happens now?”

_Yes yes yes God please yes._

“I don’t know.” He says instead, trying to play it cool, “I’ve got no idea what happens now.”

“Can it start with me kissing you?”

Roger very nearly melts.

“You never have to ask me that.” he says,

“I know. But it’s only polite.”

Roger feels like all of his swirling, molten self is poured into the press of Brian’s lips on his. He’s being thawed from the mouth down his throat, pooling in his stomach, but it means the blissful emptiness is fading and he’s remembering how red-raw he is around the edges, eyes spilling over and lump painful in his throat as he presses his face into the hollow of Brian’s shoulder. Brian holds him as he shakes, and doesn’t say anything about Roger’s tears staining the fabric of his pyjama shirt, just traces tangles in his shoulder blade with sure fingers.

“I do love you.”

It comes out before Roger even registers. Brian’s hand stills, the minutest pressure of a fingertip through his shirt.

“I don’t want you to say that because it’s what you think I want to hear.” He murmurs, and Roger pulls back enough to look him in the eye.

“I’m not. I do. I love you.”

And as he says the words, they become truer than he ever thought they could.

Brian’s eyebrows furrow the tiniest amount, like he’s trying to see inside his head, but then the corner of his mouth tilts up.

“Well then.” he says, soft as anything, “I love you too.”

Roger can’t help but smirk a little.

“You have mentioned it.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

It’s spoken in a rush as Brian leans in again, and now Roger stops holding back and lets himself be as needy as he wants, lets Brian pull him through to the bedroom, lets Tim filter out of his mind as he winds up on the mattress between slow, breathless kisses. He even lets Brian roll off him, no matter how much his brain is screaming at him to cling on, because he’s still there, he’s not going, his weight is sure and comforting and heavy beside him. He keeps an arm underneath Brian’s head and twists the curls between his fingers as they both stare up into the diagrammatic solar-system above them.

Then he remembers the other thing that’s fractured apart tonight.

“He’s leaving the band.” He murmurs.

“Tim?”

“Yeah.”

“Because of us?”

Roger really doesn’t know the answer to that question, but Brian’s hazel eyes are on him so he tries to be comforting.

“No. Maybe. Partially. He’s joining the Bee Gees.”

Brian props himself up on his side.

“He’s what?”

Roger allows himself a smile.

“Next best. They’re called Humpy Bong.”

“Fuck me.”

Brian collapses onto his back again, shifting his head to rest in the crook of Roger’s neck. There’s not much he can see now past the cloud of hair, except for the way Brian’s arms are crossed over his slim torso, rising and falling with his breath.

He tries to match them, _in and out,_ and with each one everything seems to knit together a little more. _In and out_. Brian pulls into him. _In and out._ Freddie, somewhere across the city, feels inexplicably closer.

Roger lets himself breathe, and is so focused on it that he almost doesn’t hear Brian’s voice.

“What are we going to do now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also i'm newly back on my tumblr bullshit - go follow my writing blog @ meddowes nd send me asks if u like xxxx


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